Feminism homework

Guardian blog on children's toys in Morrison's.

This article is an excellent example of reinforcing Butlers post modernist view that gender is a 'performance' and that male and female behaviour is socially constructed rather than the result of biology, this is explaining how due to socialisation, we receive our own identity where colour is one factor which separates boys from girls, as seen in this article where the colour blue symbolises the boys toys and the colour pink symbolises the girls toys. this does not empower women, instead does the opposite as the kind of toys you would see on those shelves would be doll houses and baby dolls, which may connote the typical housewife which stays at home and looks after the kids.

In my opinion I think the issue is being framed slightly wrong, which allows the shop to get away with their answer. If you accept that there are toys for girls and toys for boys, then of course it makes sense to put them in different sections as the colours easily allows kids to identify which toy is for girls and which toy is for boys, however this article has left me with the question why should there be toys for one gender and not just toys for children?

sexist stereotypes dominate the front pages 

This article doesn't supports Mcrobbies theory that women are empowered by men as it quotes that ‘Male journalist wrote 78% of all front page articles in which means there are only 32% of women journalist and 84% of those quoted or mentioned are male, 38% of women are writers on the front page this is an example gender inequality as most of the front page articles are dominated by men.

The Quote 'Sexist stereotypes, humiliating photographs of women and male bylines dominate the front pages of British newspapers' portrays the way women have been represented on front pages, as mentioned in the article, front pages tend to portray women in a bad light, making them sex objects and portraying them to be vulnerable with the Kate Middleton and maddie McCann photos, where as Men are portrayed in a positive light where men are shown to be strong and independent with it showing Simon Cowells successful biography. 

Media Story

Ashley Cole Fined For Twitter Outburst

 Footballer Ashley Cole has been hit with a £90,000 fine for his foul-mouthed twitter outburst    
 towards the FA after hearing about the written reasons by the governing body for John Terry's     
 racism ban he tweeted “Hahahahaa, well don #fa I lied did I. #BUNCHOFT**TS.”
  Cole apologised soon after but has still been fined  less than a week’s wages 

 after admitting a charge of bringing the game into disrepute.

Reading this news article i found myself to be in the middle, as i think that what Ashley Cole 

said was wrong especially expressing his foul-mouthed feelings like that on a major social 

networking platform where millions can see what he tweets, however i don't agree with the fine 

that he received. the story can be argued both ways, one way that he has the freedom of 

speech, therefore should be allowed to express his feelings, however there is a more     

appropriate way of doing that, as in the past has been fined for previous twitter outbursts 

We’ll smash you up, Amir

This story in the news is about a masked thug who try's to threaten boxer Amir khan through a online video, ranting about the smash up between Amir khan and his fellow gang members. The threat was uploaded and shown yesterday on the e-media platform youtube , four days after Amir fought of this gang who tried to carjack his £100,000 range rover.

My thought on this media news article is overall negative, my reason for this is that the masked thug as seen in the picture above is a fake, my reasons for this is that he says that he has amir khans car keys that he stole from the fight, yet he holds up car keys to a porche, where at the scene of the fight it was said that amir khans was driving his £100,000 range rover, so this leaves me thinking that this video is a scandal, and publicity stunt due to the proof not matching the evidence.

Friday News

Twitter trolls made me feel hated ... but I won’t change

A vicious stream of Twitter attacks left X Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos feeling she was “one 

of the most hated women in Britain”. Tulisa says she is targeted daily by cruel online trolls but is 

determined not to get upset.

The problem with celebrities these days is that they can't take the criticism they invite from the general public. They encourage their public to come and chat directly to them via twitter and then are surprised and disgusted when they find out there are people out there who don't adore them. The thing about it is, I'm pretty sure her public image is not as popular as she thinks it is, due to the things she has done in the past, however I think that people should forget about the past and think about the present as she can be seen as a role model to some people as she is an example of someone who has come from a deprived area and has made it big, therefore people should respect that fact and move away from the past instead of bringing it back up social networking sites.

An example of Tulisa's 'Trolls'

Virtual Revolution (BBC, 2010)

• Tim Berners Lee -> Invented the internet -> around about 2 billion people are now online -> free for people to use, no profit made -> Decentralised  
• Digital Divide - split between digital haves and digital have nots 
• Al Gore -> refers to the internet as an empowering tool, 'exciting and revolutionary'
• billion pounds a week -> spent on the internet (e-commerce)
• 5 million users use dating sites and 18 million reading blogs (mainly west london) 
• Internet revolution -> Identical to industrial revolution
• 65 million users around the world use Wikipedia -> challenges authority -> people power -> allows ordinary people to shape information -> Accuracy!?!
• 6th august 1991 -> first website launched, 1965 -> Email started
• MITS -> created first computer, Altair 8800
• Microsoft owned 90% of the market -> pressurised company's to have computers with windows software preinstalled
• Shaun Fanming -> Owner of Napster -> allowed others to share music online for free -> global piracy -> Metallica one of the bands enraged by Napster
• Chad Hurley -> CEO and co-owner of youtube -> youtube allows creative freedom, allows everyone to be seen -> Pluralism, UCG
• Ebay 21 million hits a month , Amazon 16 million hits a month, 1/3 people have a Facebook page
• Jimmy Whales (Co founder of Wikipedia) ->editors can lock and administrators can delete -> CENSORSHIP -> due to pressure/struggle by police
• Is the web unequal?!? -> Does it mirror hierarchy in the real world
• Web can be seen as a space of perpetual innovation -> provides extraordinary opportunities
• ^ BINARY OPPOSITION, GOOD VS EVIL