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No more offensive than most top shelf magazines that sexualise women, or page three in a tabloid newspaper that has an airbrushed teenager jiggling her silicone about and giving that "I'm about as intelligent as a cheese sandwich" look.
It is promoting sex with school girls though, as people have mentioned, just like Britney Spear's video... Or like that Tatu sapphic Russian romp...
I can see why people complained, I probably would if I were on my period.
The "unique way it is funded" means that people are sent to prison for watching its competitors. I am legally not allowed to watch ITV without paying the BBC first. Regardless of how good or bad the output is- but I wouldn't describe "The One and Only" as something worth wiping my arse with- the simple fact remains that people who don't pay the BBC their pound of flesh get sent to prison.
Some of the BBC's output is very good- Doctor Who, The Mighty Boosh, pretty much of all Radio Four and Radio Six- but some of it is dirge. But regardless of how good the TV or radio output is, is TV really worth sending someone to prison over?
Abolish the TV Tax and make the BBC self-funding and I will stop being anti-BBC. Hell, I might even buy a BBC subscription. If the BBC charges a subscription they'd probably make more money.
When you say that, you do realise that by "complain" you're doing more than voicing your disapproval though. An official complaint means you're actively campaigning for the removal of the rights of Ryanair to choose what to put in its adverts.
I think there should be more control of advertising- less sexual degradation for starters. Whatever the merits of the advert- I can't see any- the advert is using the idea of sex with children in order to plug cheap flights.
I'd like to see more control of sexual violence in films too.
It must just make me a big fat prude. Oh well. Shit happens.
Yes, me too... In fact, violence in general... Some films I feel have definate sexual undertones towards violence against women.
But that's a who different debate.
As far as they want provided everyone involved is consenting adults (and that would involve the reader too, if they crossed a certain boundary deemed unsuitable for children). But any newspaper that can legally print topless models should legally be able to print this Ryanair advert without any alteration to the demographic they can legally sell the newspaper to.
:yes: This getting scary in that I agree with you again (twice in a fortnight).
I can see an absolute difference between an adult posing in a uniform and rape porn. men enjoy seeing sexy women, and all the whines in the world about sexualisation isn't going to change that.
Although I normally roll my eyes at your BBC = the devil incarnate posts (in a nice way
Anyway...
I think one of the reasons I found the advert particularly distasteful was that it was a common newspaper that everyone could buy / was in common circulation. For things that hit this kind of mainstream audience there are boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not, and I don't feel sexualising school girls or being exploitative of women (page 3) are in those boundaries.
I guess porn is exploitative too, but if you are watching porn then you have made the concious decision to do so. I don't like hidden undercurrents of 'women are sex objects' in everyday life, because it is sexist (you don't see sexualised men everywhere do you?).
I know there is the argument that by defining everything as sexist I'm too sensitive - but I'm not. I used to agree that not everything fits into a box or can be fine, but I read a really good article not long ago about political correctness. Even if it does get silly these days - baa baa rainbow sheep - it is better that racism and sexism is broadly seen as a bad thing and we're too politically correct / sensitive, than 20 or 30 years ago where even though laws technically brought about equal rights, institutional racism and sexism were still as present as ever.
We're never going to hit a perfect line of making everyone feel unoffended and 'safe', vs having the freedom to poke a bit of fun - so we choose then what side of the line we want too fall on.
Too sensitive, or too ignorant?
Absolutely not the point. I agree with most of the points you made (though I certainly don't think that the objectification of women is some sort of top-down or male imposed thing), but the main point is that you should be required to convince people through arguments and challenging their opinions, not through laws and censorship.
Because I see no evidence that the it is. That and the biological fact that women attract a mate through appearance and men attract a mate through social status, and therefore we are all genetically predisposed to judge women on appearance and men on social status. That's not social conditioning, it's instinctual behaviour seen in all primates.
This must be a different Ryanair to the one known to treat customers and employees like shit; to cancel planes abroad without explanation and tell customers to find their own accommodation and pay for it; to claim to fly you to a certain city when in fact their flight goes to another city in another province 100 km. away; to be pioneer in adding extra charges for the most ludicrous things, from having luggage to checking in at the airport (!!!); or to ban employees from giving their mobile phones a quick charge at work, because of the 0.5p expense they might incur; or taking legal action to shutdown message boards and forums where Ryanair employees and customers share experiences that shed light into the modus operandi of the company.
Yes, on account of lying and making false claims. Such as that it takes less time to get from central London to central Brussels by plane than it takes by Eurostar (proven to be bollocks). Or their ever-present practice to publish very low prices for their fares when the actual price customers pay after the various extra charges, fees and taxes can be many times higher.
Make no mistake. There is no persecution by the ASA here.
What biological fact?
Are we?
And that proves its not male-imposed...how, exactly?
Aye, I'd like to see everyone treat women with respect. Don't you want that?
Social study that supports it.
I said I saw no evidence that it was. Of course feel free to contribute some evidence of your own if you think it is. Even socially, most people will admit that women are far more critical of other women's appearance than men ever are, but the importance of women's appearance almost certainly comes from biology, not social sciences.
I want plenty of things, but that doesn't mean that I think it's right to get them through force, which you seem to advocate. You seem to want a world where anyone who disagrees with your opinion is silenced through the law.
Yep, that's exactly what I want :rolleyes:
With rights come responsibilities. Sadly people seem to forget that and think that any sort of control is censorship. Restricting access to violent movies- especially movies depicting sexual violence and violence towards women- can only be a good thing. The United Nations agrees with me- violent films breed violence, and films showing sexual violence normalises sexual violence.
If that wasn't the case, Hollow Man wouldn't have had a lengthy rape scene just for titillation.
Btw, you've still provided no evidence to show that the objectification of women is neither top-down nor male. A bland "I've seen no evidence blahblahblah" isn't enough, Arsene. Given that most major media are owned and controlled by a small cabal of white middle-class men, it's fairly safe to say that men control what goes into the media and thus the objectification of women is both top-down and male-dominated.
I recently did a module at uni on power and had to do the shittest essay afterwards, where I discussed different 'forms' or implementations of power. People tend to assume it's all in plain sight, that a military commander telling his men to charge the enemy is what power is, imposing your will on others. But equally manipulating people to think in a certain way (i.e. social conditioning) is still getting others to think what you want them to think. But because it's hard to see this power a lot of people say 'its just society' or that 'its nature'.
I'm not devaluing the argument that our prehistoric ancestors probably didn't have an equal amount of power between men and women, but today there is no reason why there should be a divide yet there still is. By not caring or accepting images that disempower women - portraying them as sex objects across the mainstream media - it signifies an acceptance of the status quo. That women have less right to power than men.
Now, I don't think all images should be banned - far from it. We can have pictures of naked sexualised men and naked sexualised women too. There is no crime in enjoying seeing the opposite member of sex naked. What I object to, is not only the mass media publicising of women as sex objects (but sometimes I feel that arguing against it is like pissing on a fire), but in this particular circumstance the link between young school girl + sex object.
Now it's not going to turn people into peadophiles, but it's disempowering to these young girls on one level and on another it's wrong to sexualise children. It's the same both ways, I equally criticise germaine greer (who I believe to be a rampant sexist) who has publicly said that she believes young boys are sexually attractive. Sex is all about power, and the power balance in society is completely critical to the respect that people receive for their gender.
What do you mean by 'restricting access'? There are already age restrictions on films. Do you also believe in 'restricting access' to films depicting viloence against men, animals and identifiable groups of people? Presumably you do - and it's simply censorship and restriction of free speech.
Would you restrict access to films like Nil By Mouth, which although depicting extreme domestic violence against women, must be one of most poignant criticisms of it?
I agree with IWS on this. It appears you have a opinion on this matter and want to force people to adhere to it via legislation.
I've provided you with evidence, you've provided me with none. You want me to provide evidence for a negative? Hell, you're the one making the claim, so you provide the evidence that the objectification of women is top-down and male.
And I couldn't care less what the UN thinks. Since when were they an authority on psychology and the media? There has never been a single study that has conclusively linked violence in the media with violent behaviour, and there have even been studies that show that the liberalizing of pornography laws actually reduce the number of incidents of sexual assault against women (though again, not conclusively). The definition of the capitalist system is that men and women buy what appeals to them, and the "controlling" white men that you claim impose their view on the rest of us only give people what sells. You think Rupert Murdoch gives a shit about the oppressing women? He cares about what sells, and what sells to women is magazines, edited more often than not by women, bitching about what other women look like. Women make the choice to fund such media and buy the products advertised in them, not men. I think you have a low opinion of people if you think that the media can force them to buy into ideas that go fundamentally against their instincts. I don't think there should be a complete lift on controls on advertising. I don't think that advertisers should be able to lie in adverts, but when something is simply a matter of taste, then nobody has the right to ban it.
Well, that was a long discussion, wasn't it? I'm off to the pub...
Boiled down to it isnt. I only mentioned exploitation of women because in the mass media far more often the image of women as sex objects is used to sell products to men. As I said above, it's only that way because it's the status quo - men like to see sexy women on the cover of magasines, and magasine editors do it since it increases sales.
But that doesn't mean you have to accept the status quo - you are free to challenge it. It may be there because of prehistoric routes, who knows. It doesn't mean it's fair on both sexes, for one to be seen as a mere sex toy object for the pleasure of the other. Again, that's not to say all sexy images are bad, but it has to go part in parcel with respect and decency and appreciation that sex is only one aspect of a person.
(remainder deleted until I can word it better, the way I'd written was crap)
Well I think that the issue with women isn't the fact that some choose to be draped across car bonnets, because some men do similar things too. The problem with women is that they are routinely told that if you're not attractive, then you're not worth anything. Whereas with a man, he would be looked down on for just being good looking. Indeed, the attitude towards male models from men and women isn't exactly positive. As I've mentioned, I think that is fairly in line with evolutionary biology, but that doesn't necessarily mean I think it's a good thing. But I think that this can only be changed by positive changes, not censorship of things that degrade women, because as you've mentioned, there are plenty of things that "degrade" men, that don't really degrade them, because men have all of the positive ambitions of achieving in other areas. If we can allow women the same positive ambitions in other areas, then we won't end up with a society where if you're not attractive, you're not worth anything.
Someone told be about a Swedish study where they let people review a particular article (giving it a percentage score based on the quality). The first set of people got an article with a man's name on it, and the second set of people got the same article with a woman author on it. When it was written by a man, men gave it an average of 75%, and women an average of 67%. But when it was written by a woman, both sexes only gave it an average score of 50%. I think that says a lot about what both men and women expect women to be able to do. Incidentally, I suspect Sweden is better than most in this regard.