Real Women and Real Cultural Change

I'm down in Bournemouth for the conference and have just spent the morning perfecting a speech in the Real Women Policy Debate this afternoon.

It looks like it's going to be a debate over subscribed with speakers and there's at least 3 amendments and a separate vote!

Here are links to the policy paper itself and conference extra which has the amendment 2 to I speaking against.

I'm definitely in favour of the motion, and hoping to speak against Amendment 2 in particular - so here is my speech, just in case I don't get to give it!

Friends,

I am delighted to support this innovative and practical policy paper, because it re affirms our commitment to freedom, choice and true liberal values.

But Amendment Two would undermine that commitment.

If we pass this amendment, we’ll be saying :

‘We see there’s a problem with media images, body image and eating disorders but we don’t want to do anything about it, except to cross our fingers and hope that the problem will go away all by itself’.

What sort of policy is that?

Let’s be clear: images of women are manipulated in advertising in order to make more sales and revenue for large corporations.

Where that harms people, liberals must take positive action.

Time and time again over the past decade, research has shown that from as early as age 5 young girls feel under pressure to be slim and have a perfect body.

The publication ‘Under ten and Under Pressure’ , put out by the Girl Guides Association – that bastion of radical feminism! - found that ‘Girls Between Seven and Ten Believe being Slim and Pretty Makes you Clever, Happy and Popular’

In research by Field et al in 1999, nearly 2 in 3 of 500 girls aged between 9 and 17 agreed with the statement “pictures of women in magazines influence what you think is the perfect shape”

And 1 in 2 of the girls agreed that “Pictures of women in magazines make you want to lose weight.

The policy paper addresses this harm in a thoroughly liberal way, by providing consumers with information on how much images have been digitally manipulated; so that people can know how real or fake they are.

We’ve supported this kind of consumer empowerment before.

To help mitigate the harm of climate change we have laws requiring manufacturers to provide us with information about how energy efficient their fridges are.

Yes, the issues are complicated but now there is a simple set of categories.

So we are all empowered to make an informed choice about energy efficiency.

Yes, the process of airbrushing may also be complex.

Yet, it is entirely possible to come up with some useful guidelines.

Commonsense would ensure that what was being regulated was the manipulation of body images, not the benign change of lighting or removal of shadows.

And, just as the labelling of fridges has changed the behaviour of fridge manufacturers, so the labelling of digitally manipulated images will change the behaviour of advertisers.

What we’re talking about here is cultural change ; changing behaviours.

One reason digital manipulation works is that we don’t always know when it's been done.

If we make sure that advertisers are open and honest about it, what company will want to admit that the only way it can sell it’s products is by using fake pictures?

But if you don’t require advertisers to provide the information in the first place, you don’t get the cultural change we need.

They will have no incentive to change.

As advertising drives the profitability of magazines, newspapers and television, where they go, editorial will follow.

We didn’t cross our fingers and hope for cultural change when it came to energy efficiency of fridges, why should we do it about the well-being and self-esteem of young women and girls?

Conference, this is a liberal approach to achieving cultural change!

Yes, if a five year old is reading Cosmo then she will see digitally manipulated photos.

but if her parents choose to protect her, they will know where the safe places are.

So, Cosmo Girl, aimed directly at the teen market should help young women feel good about themselves; they shouldn’t decide they’re fat at the age of 12!

Conference, let’s make a real difference to young girls and women’s lives:

Support the motion and reject amendment two.

Carnival of Feminists

The latest Carnival of Feminists is up at The Mind of Genevieve, including my post on what should be included in 'men's' issues but isn't. from last week.

She includes a blog from Alas, a blog (yes, again, the fantasitc alas, a blog) looking into some Wrangler adverts that seem to make a woman's dead body chic. It is just unbelievable....

BBC picks up on the NYT Blogher fiasco

The BBC's iPM programme has picked up on the furore taking place on the net about NYT putting an article about the Blogher conference in the fashion and style part of the paper. Everyone from the Huffington Post to the BBC is now on the case! Hooray!

Wha'ts more, the NYT have been dealing with the complaints in a particularly gauche manner.

And why am I telling you about this again? Because it 'twas me that wrote into the iPM programme to tell them about the indignation springing up all over the blogosphere!

BBC's iPM programme on Saturday evenings is a spin off from the PM programme and picks up on stories from its listeners and bloggers writing in to alert them. Jennifer Tracey the reporter who picked up the story has blogged about it, and if you think it's one that should b followed up then please go and add your comments and thoughts about how women's blogging is treated by the mainstream media.

Women blog more than men but it seems are still relegated to the ghetto of the fashion pages when it comes to talking about it; why is that?

We're looking for female political bloggers in the wrong place...

..because when the New York Times writes about women and blogging they put it in the Style and Fashion section, not business or politics!!!!!!!!

Hat Tip to The F-Word, who tipped Every Dot Connects, who picked up the 'story' from The Brand Box.

As Every Dot Connects says:

"Well, hello! Yes, there’s a glass ceiling. And instead of addressing the question, the New York Times editors are part of the problem. A story about men who blog, especially if they had built the kind of powerhouse network the BlogHer folks have, would have run in the business or technology section of the newspaper. But women’s accomplishments in the blogosphere are celebrated in Fashion and Style"

FFS etc, etc, etc

Back on Sky.com News tonight...

I'm back on Sky.com News tonight with two different bloggers this time: Shane Greer and Jag Singh. We're going to be covering the local election results and the producers are hoping that the Mayor and London Assembly election results are going to be annouced whilst we're on air.

As I have one of the world's most expressive faces ever it will be really easy to tell what I think before I get close to opening my mouth: relief, joy or absolute horror!

I've been trying to pull myself together from a feeling of impending doom for London and write a post, but I'm struggling. It's not just the thought of Boris in charge, it's all those really smug Tories out and about again. Gah!

UK's DNA Database Shame

There’s an interesting discussion going on at the Radio 4 PM Blog about the impact of the new stop and question powers that the government want to bring in. My concern is particularly on the impact that it will have on the DNA database and I see I am not the only Lib Dem concerned about this today.

If one assumes that the purpose of new stop and questioning powers is to identify, arrest and convict more potential terrorists or just 'ordinary' criminals, then the police will be able to take more DNA and put them on the DNA database.
Some DNA database facts from Lynne Featherstone’s blog:
· 25% of the people on the database innocent of any crime
· In London, 57% of the innocent people on the database are in fact non-white.
· A third of all the black population in England & Wales is already on the database.

And now, Lib Dem Research suggests that in 3 years half of all black men will be on the database whether they have been convicted of a crime or not.

As I've blogged before, the DNA database is racially skewed, to mirror a racial skew in the police’s stop and search/questioning policy. This will eventually mean that an even higher proportion of convicted people are non-white (hence the Lib Dem researched projections).

The obvious inability to identify potential terrorist subjects by sight and therefore the need to use crude indicators based on colour of skin, or length of beard or dress underlines why these things are so pernicious. A leap is made from appearance to behaviour and then, in the UK, it gets hard coded into data on databases.

I consider myself very fortunate to be living in Britain and I love my home, the country and the city I live in but when I think about how we as a nation are the world leaders in compiling databases on our citizens such as the DNA database I hang my head in shame.

"Those who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security." (Benjamin Franklin)

Chavez and Livingstone: a tawdry alliance

More reports today than Hugo Chavez has an eye on yet another TV station that he doesn’t like. It leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, watching someone pulling the switch on such foundations of democracy as free speech.

But here in London of course, Mr Chavez is our great friend, since the deal done by our Mayor, Mr Livingstone with Mr Chavez back in February for cheap oil to fuel our buses. Yes, Venezuela, a developing country is helping to subsidise the travel of one of the most prosperous cities in the world.

So, what’s in it for Venezuela? Apparently part of the deal is that we are giving them advice on recycling and waste management! Us! In that case one might expect that we are a best practice City for recycling; but we’re not. In fact our recycling figures in London are some of the worst in the world, far behind such cities as Berlin, San Francisco or Seattle.

Not only that, but recycling isn’t even within Ken’s powers at the GLA. He has failed to get his own Government to include in the GLA bill provisions for a pan London waste authority. So presumably Ken is providing advice on the basis of what he’s like to be doing as opposed to what is actually happening in London.

A raw deal for Mr Chavez, perhaps? For Venezuela, maybe; for their increasingly despotic leader, no.

Because what Mr Chavez gets are signed contracts with one of the greatest cities in the world, which he can tout around other countries just like service organisations provide in their sales pitches their list of blue chip clients. London’s business is in effect a loss leader for Mr Chavez.

What Mr Livingstone has given him is an air of respectability that he does not deserve.

Focus on the Congo

Many of you will have listened over the last couple of mornings to the Today Programme’s reports on the Congo.

If you have you will know how harrowing they are, if you didn’t then go along to Radio 4’s listen again feature; this morning’s report was on at about 7.40am. In it a young woman from the Congo told of how, amongst other abuses, she’d been raped by 19 men in one ‘session’, been forced to hang her own child and watched as the Rwandan militia killed her brother for refusing to rape her, his sister. For the four months that she was held by the militia she was naked; no clothes at all, not even rags.

Deemed too harrowing for us to listen to, were the descriptions of forced cannibalism and worse (although I’m not sure I can imagine what that could be).

You can find details of how to help at Oxfam, where there is also a link to the Arms Control Campaign.

My point, in bringing this to your attention, is to make sure, as we are all agog at the transfer of power from Tony to Gordon, that we remember what their and our job is. On the Radio 4 PM Blog this afternoon, one blogger made the comment that it was time to for the UN to get off their backside…they’re right of course. But the UN works to the priorities of the member states and particularly those of the Security Council.

Our government seems currently to be more focused on its own party political navel and dealing with the ‘blowback’ from their foolish and illegal decision to go to war in Iraq.

The Middle East is important (I know, what an understatement) and if peace were to be brought to that region the world is sure to be a safer and more stable place. But, always hard to do, I am not sure it is possible to compare even what is happening in the Middle East & Iraq, to what is happening in Africa. It seems that as the atrocities in Africa get worse and worse we stop up our ears and hope nobody tells us any more.

It occurs to me that we might do this through a sense of colonial guilt. If we find out too much, our sense of guilt might just be unbearable; so better out of sight and then it will be out of mind. But if that’s so, then it is stuff and nonsense. I am not responsible for the actions of my ancestors of a hundred or even fifty years ago. Although, obviously, I must be is cognisant of the fall out from their actions and the effect it has had on mine and others life. But I am responsible for what is allowed to happen now and it is up to us as human beings to make sure that this barbarism in Congo stops; by supporting the UN, by supporting the NGOs, by not ignoring it or feeling too overwhelmed by it all and putting our leaders back on the hook.

So, Mr Brown, who has made so much about his concern for Africa…what are you doing about the Congo?

I cannot begin to imagine the unbearable pain of the parents of the little girl gone missing in Portugal. I can, however, imagine that the pain now coming out of Africa is multiplied a thousand fold. I only wish that our outrage and concern, as evidenced by the media, was as proportionate.

Were the BBC at the same conference as me?

Just had the speediest of browses of Lib Dem Blogs to see loads of people saying 'I wasn't at conference but I don't like what the BBC said Ming said in his speech...' etc, etc.

Well, I was at conference, was in the audience of the speech and don't recognise anything in it that said we wanted to go into coalition with Labour and would be prepared to drop PR as a pre-condition!

Go and read Lynne's blog, where you get a rather succinct take about what the BBC are on about!

Seriously, I think the BBC were watching a different speech from the one I was did. I went for a post conference lunch with a few colleagues and nobody there took anything like that away from the speech, conversation s with other colleagues on the train back home didn't highlight anything about a Labour coalition either: so it's not just me that can't see it. The BBC probably couldn't find anything to criticise so had to create a furore that just wasn't there!

Should we be surprised by the cynicism of Channel 4?

I was interested to listen to Nick Clegg on question time express surprise on Question Time last night at his fellow panel members consensus on the fact that the events in the Big Brother house (especially the diary entry from Shilpa Shetty that she didn't believe that she was a victim of racism) was being orchestrated and manipulated by the producers and editors of Big Brother!

I'm afraid I'm going to have to weigh in here because although I very rarely watch reality TV, unless you count Strictly Come Dancing, I have been a participant / contestant on some a long, long time ago. Well, 2001, to be exact, but it feels a long, long time ago and reality TV has moved on a lot since my experience.

I took part in a programme called (and I'm almost cringing as I write this) 'The Heat is On', the follow up to Castaway 2000. It was filmed at the same time as the first 'Survivor' series was on and at the time we filmed only one series of BB had aired.

I have lots of stories and anecdotes and experiences form my two weeks survival training up in western Scotland and made two very, very good friends from the other participants; it was a unique experience which I would not have been without but one I went into extremely naively.

If there was one thing that I learnt very quickly out there in the wet, rain and with a very empty stomach was that however friendly the production team were to you, they weren't your friends at all.

Some of the participants were fame wannabe's but I don't know what possessed some of the others not realise that every single separate sentence could be used against them out of context to carry on like they did! The production team didn't like the word reality TV and preferred to use 'constructed documentary' - I don't know which is the more honest but I do know that they attempted to manipulate, bring discord and disharmony at every point.

I also came away quite convinced that the production team, whilst they would never pro-actively hawk their grandmother around, would if required sell her to get a good bit of TV.

I saw fellow participants edited into complete caricatures of themselves whilst other people were presented as absolute angels. There were a few characters there but the editor's knife is the most enormous bit of manipulation. That is not to excuse those being manipulated on CBB7 but to illustrate that C4 is complicit in it.

I have to admit I clammed up in front of the cameras pretty quickly, as I never, ever forgot a) that my Mum would be watching b) that anybody I said anything about would eventually hear me saying it and c) that some of the cameraman had had careers in war journalism that I was completely in awe of and wasn't about to shame myself in front of people I respected!

It meant I gave them very little to go on and consequently did not play a starring role in the final edit! I'm quite grateful for that now!

The aim of the first half of the programme was to undertake survival training and earn your place on 'an adventure' in an unspecified place but we were being taught a few words of spanish, swahili and malay, so whatever it was going to be exotic and I was up for it!! So up for it, I was the only person who never expressed anything but a complete desire to go on...which in my continuing naivety I didn't realise was sealing my failure..why on earth would they want to see me achieve my aim? Where was the television in that?

And it worked perfectly. I don't always need 2 weeks of near starvation rations, no sleep and utter exhaustion and a failure to achieve my goal to make me cry but it sure did help! I was the first person in over two weeks to have both camera crews filming me at the same time; on the final edit my tears were shown in slow motion! I had finally provided them with TV worth watching. Oh dear! I laugh at it now but the flurry of calls by friends and family on the night that it was aired was very welcome.

I don't mind really, that was all part of the deal, I guess. But it taught me a lot about the relationship between the media and anybody wanting to court it.

Where there's muck there's brass; the producers are doing what they're paid to do and produce TV that everybody wants to watch. If it looks like it's getting a bit hairy, financially then they will go in and sort it out and that was what Shilpa's diary room visit was about yesterday; to diffuse the potential row so that C4 could continue raking in the money. Is that responsible or not? Probably not, but they're not paid to be responsible.