Feminism is not a club you join

Posted by Sebastienne





Recently, feminists on Twitter have been carrying out a #DiversityAudit on the representation of women in British TV and radio, with a particular focus on comedy panel shows.

It has, perhaps not unexpectedly, revealed that TV and radio panel shows have a rather strong bias towards the representation of one particular gender - and it's not women! Thefword have published an overview of the findings - with the most representative of shows just nudging 1 in 3 female guests, and Mock The Week just about managing 1 in 7. And lest you think these figures aren't too saddening, take note - they refer only to guests on the shows. When you take into account regulars, like hosts and team captains, no show manages more than 17% women. That's 1 in 6.

Feminism and Men

Dear Readers,

Apologies for the lateness of this post - there have been some technical problems with the Blogger site over the past few days.

However, we hope you'll find it was worth the wait for this post by our newest guest blogger.
Love,
Lashings x

Feminism and Men

by Guest Blogger Dan

I’ve been trying to write something on my involvement with feminism for the last three and a half years or so. And, no matter where I start, I always end up at the question of what men can or should do in a feminist political space.


Fairly essential to feminism for all its diversity, is the acknowledgment of a patriarchal society in which women are oppressed. And men have no small hand in the creation and perpetuation of this inequality and oppression. For any man to accept some of these basic ideas is to instantly be forced to answer some difficult questions. If I am indeed a man, what has my role been in oppressing others through my unconscious excercise of male privileges? What are those privileges? What does that culpability then say about my character, my perception of myself – and further down the line, about the very formulation of my identity and my relationships with others?