Is this offensive?

[Besswess88]

Please be kind I have never been here defies so it’s quite scary

So I posted this in AIBU and I was voted 80% YABU (full thread is here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4092075-Do-you-find-this-offensive )

One poster suggested I post it here and see what the opinion is.

Someone randomly posted this in a community group I am in and I said I found it offensive and misogynistic and it was removed but the poster started a lot of other threads about it and I was basically called a “snowflake” 🙄 and I left the group.

To me yes maybe it is”petty” but this subtle stuff feeds the bigger stuff and perpetuates it.

I speak as a woman who has had large breasts from a young age and always received unwanted attention from males (much older ones when on my teens).

Is it offensive and does it perpetuate misogyny?

.ah... the thread title was whether posters found it offensive, I was looking at your posts rather than that
Word AIBUs carefully!

This - if you ask whether people find it offensive you're going to get a range of answers, some saying no, they don't find it offensive and that it's funny.
You're entitled to be offended by it though, we're not all the same.

You'd have to explain to me why anyone thought it was amusing before I could decide if it were offensive.

Maybe there are contexts where it isn't offensive. Broadcast to a general audience that includes women, who have to ignore in-your-face male gazing constantly, yes, it's offensive.

Make your jokes about men as sex objects if you absolutely have to make jokes using sex. And if you can't think of anything funny in that line, maybe think about why that might be.

Well it's an old seaside postcard isn't it? They were everywhere when I was young...surprising that someone has posted it on a thread on FB - it just seems such old fashioned humour. Like when you watch re-runs of old comedy like Love Thy Neighbour etc.
I wouldn't find it offensive as such, more weird that someone posted it. What are they, 12?

@ErrolTheDragon

YANBU it's misogynistic- old fashioned objectification of women.

'Offensive' is maybe too much of an overused word - this is weak and unfunny, more than iyswim.

Definitely has no place in the 21st century though.

Agree with errol.

“Offensive” and “offended” have had to do so much heavy lifting in recent years, they’re worn out. If someone showed me that, I’d just do my best basilisk stare and maybe comment about how puerile it is.

It's at times like this that Mumsnet is just weird.

When people claim they don't understand what someone means by offensive when discussing if a sexist joke is offensive.

@NiceGerbil

Me and OP are similar age!

I always hated the lot of it.

All the men is drag with comedy massive boobs made me feel uncomfortable and I didn't know why. Page 3 made me feel uncomfortable. Ditto shops with 'girly' calendars up (mechanics usually) and those peanut pub things where the woman was revealed as the packets were bought. I used to look at them and feel. Well I couldn't express it.

The random scantily clad women as props to men making jokes for men to laugh at and women to laugh along with as well. Haha the wind blew and her skirt went up in front of a group of builders! Now she's running off embarrassed! Hahaha! There was a lot of that stuff.

Anyway I don't think it's an age thing anyway.

I am close in age to the OP too and shared exposure to this sort of thing growing up. It made me nauseous and I dreaded womanhood as a result.

I do find the postcard offensive because it is sexist. It humiliates and objectifies women and as others have said it trivialises sexual assault. I would not have much respect for the kind of person that posts such things.

This is much earlier seaside postcard humour than the 70's these postcards were certainly around in the 1950's. They were thought tasteless (depending on your class) even then.

I found them gross as a child (parents frantically trying to shield my eyes) but if I were studying women's history, then I think I would include this sort of stuff in my research.

Did anyone (here) think it was funny and laugh? I didn't.

In fact I'd say that I'd look askance at anyone who did. They'd have to be a bit simple?

So it's a very poor cartoon and I'm not surprised that some are offended if they've had to put up with leering, inadequate men for most of their lives.

These postcards were common when I was a child. I hated them then and still hate them now. They made me feel exposed. Postcards often poked fun at men too. I didn't like that either but there are obviously different implications when it comes to women.

I don't like advertisers, humourists or anyone else objectifying women for their own purposes. So I'm with you OP.

@Quaagars

Old seaside postcard humour. As I said on the other thread, can't get too worked up over it. Doesn't offend me.

Ah @Quaagars, what a surprise.

And welcome OP. Keep posting, there are plenty of different perspectives here, discussion is welcome

Ah @Quaagars, what a surprise

Must have missed or chosen to ignore where I also said that I can totally understand people being offended but I personally aren't.
Which is what was asked.
Do you find this offensive?
Me - no. But i can see why some are.
You're entitled to be offended by it though, we're not all the same

there are plenty of different perspectives here, discussion is welcome
OK, only if you agree with everyone or are able to put up with little digs all the time though lol

I also said I didn't find it particularly funny either seeing as you're ignoring that as well.

if I were studying women's history, then I think I would include this sort of stuff in my research.

Exactly this. I'm not offended, per say. It's social history. Not funny, but useful in demonstrating that the objectification of women has routinely been played for laughs (clearly her tits are available to all comers). No doubt the sort of thing that if a woman complained about back then they'd have been accused of being a humourless, cold fish. So great we don't do that to women any more isn't it

These kinds of postcard were everywhere at the seaside when I was a child, and that was the 80s.
Even then they seemed naff and old fashioned though, with very simple and crude humour.
I'd be suprised if anyone laughed at it, not because it's offensive, but because it's a joke that's been told a million times.
It's essentially the same as the Sid James/Barbara Windsor joke - what a lovely looking pear, as she's eating a pair.
Done to death, boring and old fashioned.

^I got pair and pear the wrong way round, sorry

surprising that someone has posted it on a thread on FB - it just seems such old fashioned humour. Like when you watch re-runs of old comedy like Love Thy Neighbour etc.

Except by and large surely people don't watch re-runs of love thy neighbour (is it available on any service?) nowadays , and afaik there isn't a current mainstream prime time equivalent (thank goodness).

But sexist humour ... that's never gone away. If anything the 'banter' is coarser and more explicit and threatening now (there's a thread on a particularly rank comment on 8 out of 10 cats for instance). As a child in the 60s and 70s it was this postcard/benny hill sort of thing - nudge nudge, wink wink innuendo , generally featuring a male who looks like a loser or twit. That was a cheap device for claiming it was laughing at men too I suppose.

I saw your AIBU thread and am glad to see you post this here, OP!

I remember these postcards from my childhood, when they were regularly displayed outside newsagents - part of the general background of sexism and objectification of women that was so much part of the cultural landscape in the 60’s/70’s.

I think that a man posting this now in a mixed sex community group is actually a form of sexual harassment of the women in that group. It’s objectifying women and trivialising the reality of sexual assault, the fact that some men feel entitled to grope women as and when they choose. Which itself is utterly dehumanising, and given how often it does actually happen IRL - both the comments and the groping - it’s pretty shit to expect women, especially women you don’t know well (ie in this community group context) to find it funny.

I hated this stuff back in the 70’s - hated Benny Hill too - and it’s just crap that some men still think it’s ok to post something like this and accuse you of having no sense of humour if it offends/upsets you.

Anyway. Yes, I think it’s offensive, in this context certainly, and yes it perpetuates misogyny. I’m sorry you’ve been excluded from the group by this man’s actions. But welcome to FWR!

generally featuring a male who looks like a loser or twit. That was a cheap device for claiming it was laughing at men too I suppose.

Yes, absolutely Errol

I don't find the actual image offensive (distasteful) but I would find a society that found it funny and acceptable problematic.

To me it says more about an individual who would laugh at, buy and send, give patronage to images like that.

And would raise red flags about the individual.

As a pp said, I'd include it as a source to demonstrate social attitudes in a book about women's history.

Yes as above, finding it funny or acceptable perpetuates misogyny.

@Abitofalark

I've had to magnify it to read the writing on the front of the counter and in doing so noticed another detail - what I think may be a knotted handkerchief on the man's head, in which case I'm laughing. Otherwise, no.

Why is the hanky funny? In the days when men carried handkerchiefs and before the cult of sunscreen on every exposed part, it was a sensible way to stop a bald head getting sunburned. Granted you wouldn’t see it these days, but funny?

'no sense of humour' = a good sense of humour so you are able to discern whether something is actually funny or not.

I believe that the knotted hanky hat thing was called a "sidcup" in the Meaning of Liff.