How we started. Where we’re heading

It was a comment about my book, Getting Real: Challenging the sexualisation of girls, which sparked the birth of Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation.

A contributor, Melbourne writer and blogger Tania Andrusiak (author of Adproofing Your Kids: Raising critical thinkers in a media-saturated world ) described the book as “a collective shout against the pornification of culture”.

Those words leapt out at me. I liked the phrase so much, I thought it perfect for a new grassroots campaign movement which had been brewing in my mind and in the minds of some of my friends and fellow activists.

Research describing the harms of objectification and sexualisation was building around the world. The book was out. People were asking: what can we do?

It seemed the time had come for a strategic organised movement to equip and empower people to take action and support individuals already active against the onslaught of hypersexualised imagery, stereotypical, objectified representations of women and girls and the almost chic images of women subjected to violence.

So when Tania uttered those words – Collective Shout – I thought: that’s it.

In December last year a small team of women got together in Canberra to discuss the possibilities. We developed these goals:

• To expose corporations, advertisers, marketers and media who objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products and services and pressure them to change their behavior

• To bring an end to the broader pornification of our culture by challenging the hyper-sexualised images which have become mainstream

• To, more broadly, challenge all forms of sexual trade and commerce in women’s bodies, including pornography, prostitution and trafficking

• To help concerned individuals take up their rightful voice in the public square

Collective Shout is about naming and identifying the ways that women and girls are represented as sexualised, subordinate and submissive.

The movement has established itself as a serious, dynamic, agent for change. Collective Shout is now at the forefront of challenging the pornification of culture in all its forms.

Victories

In its first 12 months, the movement has achieved a number of significant wins. These include:

• Getting Bonds to withdraw bras for 6-year-old girls

• Getting supermarket chain Woolworths to disassociate itself with a sexist Lynx promotion

• Getting Calvin Klein billboards suggestive of sexual assault removed

We’ve reminded companies of the importance of corporate social responsibility. We have put them on notice that if they do the wrong thing, they will be exposed and boycotted. The bodies of women and girls should not be seen as fodder for companies to exploit for profit.

We’ve had great media coverage. Just this month, we’ve appeared in everything from Harper’s Bazaar to the Tumbarumba Times. Here’s some examples of recent coverage:

Our first birthday party

Collective Shout’s achievements were celebrated last weekend in Brisbane.  Here are some pics from the night. Special thanks to Julie Gale, founder of Kids Free 2b Kids, our MC Erica Bartle, ‘Girl with a Satchel’ blogger, Margaret Keech, Member for Albert and Government Whip and Dr Robi Sonderreger, clinical psychologist, for your support and kind words on the night. Thanks also to all our sponsors, donors, musos and artists for your part in making the event special. Also to my CS colleagues and to Catherine Smibert for bringing it all together.

What’s Next?

Watch the Collective Shout website for an announcement about our new “Crossed Off” campaign, which targets companies who have done the wrong thing and don’t deserve your Xmas dollar. Cross them off your Christmas List.

If you haven’t done so already, please sign up. And if you’d like to help us make an even bigger difference in the coming year, please make a donation on line through the website.

See: Winning the War Against Sexualisation by Miranda Devine

Collective Shout flexes muscles to make a difference, by Jenny Cullen

Latest child abuse book removed but others remain

[trigger warning for survivors of child sexual assault]

After a global protest and threats of boycott, on-line bookseller Amazon removed The Pedophile’s Guide to Love & Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct from its site yesterday.

The book endorses sexual crimes against children.

The E. book by Phillip R. Greaves, which was available for Amazon’s Kindle electronic reader, is an instructional manual which teaches pedophiles how to break the law so as to avoid getting, caught or so as to attract ‘liter’ [sic] sentences” if they are caught.

In using the term ‘pedosexuals’, the book asserts that the sexual abuse of children (often their own children) is simply a sexual preference. The idea is that pedophiles are a misunderstood sexual minority who ‘love’ children. The book compares the plight of pedophiles to the plight of Jews in World War 2.  This is a deadly idea that covers up the reality of what is being promoted: the rape of children.

The book advises on how to find products similar to condoms for ‘boys younger than thirteen’. It gives advice on the best way to use images of children as ‘masturbation material’. It suggests the use of ‘any children you have actually been with, in the past’ in fantasies.

In its initial statement,  Amazon said it “believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchase.”

Yet Amazon’s own policies  prohibit content of certain kinds, including “offensive material,” as well as content that “may lead to the production of an illegal item or illegal activity.”

Perhaps teaching men how to rape children and get away with it just wasn’t offensive enough?

A word about the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Here’s what it says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

This only explicitly refers to Congress making laws on speech, not state laws and not local regulations, but the way the Amendment has been interpreted however means that it is now broader in scope. However, rather than conferring a right to free speech on the part of individuals or companies, it restrains the exercise of certain power by certain (governmental) bodies. Amazon is privately owned, it can largely set its own limits (which it seemed to do, then ignored).

Should ‘freedom of speech’ trump a child’s right to be safe and not be harmed? The promotion of sexual abuse of children should be met with zero tolerance. Children’s rights to safety outweigh a pedophile defender’s ‘right to free speech.’ This book does more than promote, it falls in the legal category of ‘child abuse materials’.

The laws in Australia are aimed against not only “child pornography” but against the wider category of “child abuse material”. As this instruction manual for child abuse is an e- book, it could fall under the prohibition against using a carriage service to access child abuse materials. So this book could be actionable under Australian law.

Those defending this material don’t want any regulations. But in the absence of people regulating themselves, ie. not abusing children and not publishing how-to guides on pedophilia, then regulation is necessary.

It was great to see how one woman’s complaint against Amazon set off a global protest resulting in The Pedophile’s Guide being removed from the site . But that’s just one of the titles to which Amazon links. There are more here.

 Some people ask, how do you draw the line in regulating speech? We draw the line on harm, and we need to hold the line on this.

As published on

Drawing the line on The Morning Show

Here’s my thoughts on the issue on Channel 7s Morning Show this morning. Fiona Patten from The Australian Sex Party appears too.

The Australian Sex Party doesn’t seem to have any issue with  pornography depicting young women as little girls, which also plays into the hands of those who desire to abuse children. I’ve written about that here.

Ritualised aggression designed to keep women in their place

Listen to this:

Does it send shivers up your spine?  Make you feel chilled?

That’s what it did to me.

The chanting pack, the ‘No means Yes’ mantra, the threatening insistent tone, the sense of ritualised aggression.

It felt like something the Klu Klux Klan might have produced. With Blacks exchanged for Women.

What you just heard though isn’t from a despised hate group. It’s the collective chant of a mob of privileged young men. Proud members of the Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity of Yale University.

It wasn’t just the phrase ‘No means Yes’ they chanted. Added to that was ‘Yes means anal’, for that extra sense of domination. Get her on her knees and show her whose boss, young gentleman of Yale.

And it’s not like it’s even a one-off. Imagine being a survivor of sexual assault seeking counseling and support from the Women’s Centre, when this happens.

In 2006, fraternity members marched outside the Women’s Center on campus, chanting the same words. Two years later, members of another fraternity shouted about ‘Yale sluts’, also outside the Women’s Center. Michael Kimmell, writing for the MS Blog,  asks these questions:

What does it mean to chant “No Means Yes” outside the campus Women’s Center, the place that offers a safe space for women who have been assaulted or abused? What does it mean to target the one place where women might actually feel safe enough to find their own voice, feel strong enough to succeed in a world still marred by gender inequality? It’s a reminder that men still rule, that bro’s will always come before “ho’s”. Even the Women’s Center can’t protect you.

Given that this is the latest in what appears to be a pattern of behavior among a number of Yale students, given that there was 13 sexual assaults committed by Yale students on campus in 2008, and given that Yale’s chiefs would claim to be against violence against women, why does this continue?

Why doesn’t such behavior constitute instant expulsion? Why is a fraternity which spreads hate speech as one of its activities not shut down? Why should wealth and privilege protect these thugs from just consequences?

The latest in violence against women as a fashion accessory

It’s not hard to picture men like that in t.shirts like this:

A woman is bound and bleeding. But she’s told to ‘Relax, it’s just sex’.

This t.shirt is being sold in Australia today. To men and schoolboys here.

I’ve written about t.shirts mocking sexual assault and inciting crimes of violence against women and girls here before,  and here.  ‘It’s not rape if you yell surprise’, ‘It’s not rape, it’s surprise sex’, and, more recently, brought to you by Sexpo: ‘Silence is Golden’, depicting a bound woman with a red ball stuffed in her mouth, were a couple I highlighted.

Roger David’s range of tees depicted women bound, gagged, blindbolded and semi-naked.  The company has continued to ignore complaints. Zero response, don’t give a damn. Ignore them back this Christmas.

Anyway, this latest monstrosity, ‘Relax it’s just sex’, is produced by that bastion of respect for women, Hustler. The U.S-based porn empire has exported its vile product to be sold in mainstream stores here. Just doing their bit to further entrench a culture of violence and every-day threat to women.

Of course, Collective Shout members are speaking out against it. And Queensland’s Women’s Minister raised the issue in State Parliament a couple of weeks ago. See this piece on Collective Shout’s website.

No doesn’t mean yes. We don’t consent to being treated this way.

Calvin Klein: selling the degradation of women

(Trigger warning for survivors of sexual assault) 

 “I cannot escape one simple fact: that if we continue to subject future generations of young men to great barrages of aggressive, misogynist, over-sexualized and violent imagery in pornography, movies, computer games and advertising, we will continue to see the rates of sexual violence against women and children that continue unabated today. Or worse.”

Alison Grundy is a Clinical Psychologist with 20 years experience working with victims of sexual and interpersonal violence. We got to know each other when she asked me to address sexual assault counsellors on the sexualisation of girls, at a seminar in Sydney last year. Alison posted a comment on my piece Sexism: alive and well in Australia (reprinted here from The Drum Unleashed)which I thought deserved expansion as a guest post.

As a therapist in the field of sexual violence for 20 years now, I always thought things would get better over time. As more people became aware of the pain and suffering, the utter devastation, the long-standing and often severe psychological problems, the drug and alcohol addictions, the relationship and parenting difficulties, society would change and we would protect women and children from abuse, especially sexual abuse. In short, we would become more civilized. 

But as I look at the Calvin Klein poster clearly intimating the gang rape of a woman to advertise the brand, the inescapable conclusion is that we have somehow gone badly backwards. All kinds of questions occur to me.

How can it be OK to use sexual violence as a marketing tool? When did gang rape stop being abhorrent and become “sexy”? When did gang rape get minimized to “group sex”? Why does it seem so easy for the average person to believe that a woman (often a very young woman) would really consent to having sex with large groups of drunken, abusive men? 

Of course there are many complex socio-political and psychological issues involved in sexual violence in all its forms. Given that orgasm is a powerful reinforcer of behaviour -and I would argue, attitudes – if our boys and men are watching and masturbating to endless scenes of women being sexually tortured by groups of men while breathlessly claiming they want more (through gritted teeth), we can hardly be surprised that our daughters are less safe from this type of sexual crime now than ever before.

Unfortunately, as this advertisement shows, the mainstreaming of pornography and violent sexualised imagery is ubiquitous. Boys and men no longer need to be ashamed of accessing demeaning and debasing images of women. They are everywhere, condoned by society, reflecting its values and therefore proudly shared on computers and phones, billboards and catalogues.

Meanwhile the sex industry is now seen as just that, an industry as like any other in the market place. But instead of selling the newest type of skateboards to our young men it sells the degradation of women. In doing so, it reduces their humanity to what they offer sexually, and contributes to making the world a very dangerous place – especially for women and children.

We now have 30 years of research demonstrating that what we watch on TV, play in interactive games and see in pornography, does affect us, does change us and does influence our choices of behaviour.

I am still surprised that most people think sexual violence is relatively uncommon. I think this is because the victims are so blamed, shamed and persecuted they rarely speak up – and because the perpetrators of this type of violence rarely face any consequences.

There are many studies showing that interpersonal violence is so common. As a clinical psychologist it is the foundation of most of the issues I will ever encounter no matter where I work. And one of the most damaging forms of interpersonal violence is of course, sexual abuse.

In its 2006 report, the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research tells us there were more than 7000 reports to police of sexual and indecent assault in NSW in 2004. However, it is widely recognised that reports to police represent only a fraction of the assaults that are actually happening, perhaps only ten to fifteen percent.

So the Bureau’s statistics roughly translate, in the real world, to 50-70,000 crimes of this type against mostly women and children in 2004 in NSW. (The year 2004, by the way, did not differ much from the previous 10-year data and is probably reflective of the years since).

Most people would be staggered to know that only about one in ten of these reported incidents resulted in someone being found guilty in court and about half of those who were found guilty did not receive a prison sentence.

So, to summarise, a rough (and probably conservative) estimate of 50- 70,000 acts of sexual violence in one year in NSW and only 251 people receiving a full time prison sentence as a consequence of these actions. This sobering reality perhaps explains some of the high recidivist rates.

These are very complex issues, and there are very many reasons why sexual violence is so endemic in Australia. We need a much more concerted effort to bring these crimes into the light.

We need to believe victims and help them to heal with compassion and justice. We need to treat offenders with programs that accept no excuses and help them to recognise the immense damage their behaviour has caused.

But this will only happen in the context of the society we live in and the kind of world we allow. In this world, the horrifying crime of gang rape is being increasingly reported to professionals such as myself.

And this crime is being carried out on the bodies of young and younger girls. A phenomena my colleagues and I are seeing is younger and younger girls presenting – often 13 and 14 years of age – after gang rape.

I have sat in counseling with many women – often very young – and therefore just beginning to define what they would like their lives to be – who have experienced the terror and unrelenting horror of rape and gang rape. It’s a struggle that goes on and on through years of rebuilding a sense of self, a world view and working out a way of being part of a society again that not only allows the vast majority of rapes to never be punished but allows constant in your face debasement and trivialization of their trauma in billboards like this.

Where are the regulators? Where are the minds and hearts of the people who get paid to make these offensive campaigns? Maybe they can spend just an hour or two in my office any day of the week.

I cannot escape one simple fact: that if we continue to subject future generations of young men to great barrages of aggressive, misogynist, over-sexualised and violent imagery in pornography, movies, computer games and advertising, we will continue to see the rates of sexual violence against women and children that continue unabated today. Or worse.

We should be striving to be more, not less civilized. But Calvin Klein just makes this goal less attainable.

Take action here

Published today on

Sexism: alive and well in Australia

Virginia Haussegger is right to lament the status of women in other countries and the brutalities and indignities they suffer daily.

But attitudes towards women in our own so-called liberated western democracy desperately need an overhaul as well.

While I frequently write about the objectification of women and girls, this issue has been unrelenting of late. Sexism is alive and well. Is it really the 21st century?

Lynx sexual performance in Martin Place

Last Thursday global brand Unilever staged a ‘Pop-up spadate’ in Sydney’s Martin Place to promote its ‘man-cation’ travel destination, the Lynx Lodge. Young bikini-clad women splashed about in a hot tub. The amply breasted models had shower gel splattered across their chests (a reference to ejaculation, for those unfamiliar with the porn genre).

Nina Funnell described the scene in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:

“… Martin Place was transformed into something resembling a cheap porn filmset…The hot tub was placed on a raised platform, blocked off by rails. Male suits pulled out iPhones to take photos through the rails…Other Lynx models pranced around in tiny French maid outfits. Another had set up a masseuse table and was busy giving a semi-naked man a massage. Unsurprisingly men ogled the women, slapping each other on the back, while making comments like “she’s a bit of all right” or “I wouldn’t mind a bit of that”. I felt like I’d walked into a middle aged man’s seedy buck’s night. It was 9am on a Thursday morning.”

Did Sydney City Council and its female Lord Mayor approve this sexual display in the middle of Sydney city? No qualms about sending men off to work all aroused? No second thoughts about the message to boys that they are entitled to ogle women in public places?

The Lynx Lodge appears to be parent company Unilever’s foray into the sex industry, with all the trappings of a brothel without identifying it as such. “Lynx Lodge – Get Laid Back” declares the website:

“The ultimate man-cation destination to get you back to your primal roots”

“Get laid back, as lodge staff pamper you with breakfast in bed and on-the-spot massages”

“Golf range: Grab your wood”

“Pool hall: Scared of being beaten by a girl? Some of our guests quite enjoy it.”

“Ball Games: Teamwork is everything, so be sure to focus on your partner’s backside to make out her block signals.”

Women are advertised as ready to do a man’s bidding and to entertain and excite him.

A video ad shows young women lonely and desperate for men to arrive at the lodge. Helpless and passive, they need a man to serve and give them attention. One girl wades naked into the lake waiting for him to arrive.

You can see just how mainstream sexism has become. Woolworths is in bed with Lynx, co-branding in the promotion of borderline prostitution at the Lodge.

Yet Woolies claims a “high level of social responsibility”.

How is supporting a view of women as subservient sexual slaves acting responsibly? Woolies, the women-as-fresh-meat-people?

Does this look like one of your fresh food mums, Mr Michael Luscombe, Managing Director and CEO?

Evidence of the Lynx Effect can be found on its Facebook page.

“DO I WIN A BLONDE , NICE ASS , LARGE NATURAL BREASTS,NICE EYES ” asks one man. About the spa girls:

“you no [sic] that you would ruin that all night long”

“nice PAIRsonality!”

The Gold Cost Turf Club: Parading women like animals

The Gold Coast Turf Club is planning a special summer carnival in which women in bikinis take the place of horses. Herded into horse barrier stalls, they will be released to sprint down the straight for a prize.

The entry form calls entrants “mares and fillies”. The club takes no responsibility for “injury or death”. Women must wear a bikini and “acceptable running shoes”. Of course, her feet must be supported but her breasts need be free to bounce around for the entertainment of male punters.

The responses from Women in Racing and the Brisbane Women’s Club were lamentably weak. Women in Racing Director Jennifer Bartels said: ”We love anyone who will promote racing, but perhaps this isn’t quite racing. Good luck to them though.” Good luck to them?

Turf Club CEO Andrew Eggleston wants to see elite sportswomen take part. Just not in their usual sportswear.

Calvin Klein violent billboards

Then I was sent this billboard image from a woman in Sydney. Another example of violence against women being promoted as sexy, with intimations of the gang rape of an inanimate young woman. Where the hell is the Advertising Standards Board on this and others like it?

Yesterday my sister contacted me from Byron Bay about the three Wicked Campers she’d just seen with slogans: “Jugs” “Random Breast Testing” and “Shaved Pussy” across their vans. Sexism on wheels.

Everywhere they look, women and girls get the message that they exist for male gratification and pleasure. Their reason for being is to serve men and meet their every need. They should enjoy sexual harassment.

Fortunately there is a grassroots uprising against this. You can find it at www.collectiveshout.org. We’ve had enough. Vive la revolution.

Read The Drum piece here.

Turf Club’s sexist stunt: MTR on Morning Show

Whether it hurts the woman or not, the men don’t care

The sex industry done well at spinning prostitution as a positive good for all involved. This piece in The Irish Times cuts through the gloss and shows what life is like for many prostituted women (and there’s no reason to believe these experiences are limited to Ireland). Here’s an extract:

The release last week of the annual report from Ruhama, the charity for women affected by prostitution, triggered a mild flurry of curiosity about the lives of one of the most contentious groups in society.

Last year, these women “reported horrific levels of sexual, physical and emotional abuse”, said the charity’s chief executive, Sarah Benson. They were punched in the face, in the stomach, were kicked down stairs, beaten for refusing to have sex with men, were locked in, were refused food, were burned and bitten.

“Women were told by buyers that they were ‘ugly’, ‘not very good’, that they ‘should at least try to look like you’re enjoying it’ while their bodies were used in whatever way the buyer wished,” said Benson. Which means “turning yourself into a public toilet”, in the words of one former prostitute this week.

The notion of a mutually pleasurable, damage-free transaction – as promoted by the industry and supporters of legalisation – sits wildly at odds with the reality of these engagements. Were it not for the wreckage they leave behind, the self-delusion of the average sex buyer would be laughable. Read the full article here

The brutalisation of girls

In the past couple of weeks I’ve met or heard from young girls whose experiences give further disturbing insight into just how bad things are for girls right now.

A 12-year-old girl approached me after I addressed the question ‘Are girls being treeated as sex objects?’ before an audience in Sydney’s western suburbs. She revealed she was being molested by boys at school. It had gone on every day for two weeks. She hadn’t told anyone. She asked the boys not to do it. They ignored her. Her eyes brimming with tears, she wanted to know how she could make it stop, or if that was even possible.

An 11-year-old girl in a NSW country town was the only one in her friendship group who had not yet had sex. Her friends had made arrangements for her to lose her virginity at the annual show. She didn’t feel she was ready and was looking for excuses she could give to get out of turning up. Was there any way out for her or would she have to give in?

Two 14-year-old girls told me about multiple unpleasant sexual hook-ups, pressured by older boys into acts they felt bad about after. They feared resisting and felt powerless to make it stop.

None of these girls seemed aware that they had a right not to be harassed, not to be molested and assaulted, not to be coerced into unwanted sexual activity. It was so common for themselves and their friends to be treated this way. And they feared repercussions, being ostracised, causing a ‘fuss’ and attracting attention for making a complaint.

Fortunately, a young policewoman had just introduced herself to me. She was able to assist the first girl. An educator was trying to help the second. And the 14-year-olds were looking at getting further help and advice.

What a world our girls are inhabiting. They are having to comprehend and negotiate difficult things at ages when they shouldn’t have to. They are being systematically preyed upon. Here are two more examples in as many days.

Porno pic cyber-bullying at ‘epidemic level’

CYBER-bullying is reaching epidemic levels, says a Melbourne youth worker, amid new claims about young girls being pressured to provide pornographic images of themselves.

Police are investigating a case at St Joseph’s College boys school in Geelong, in which it is believed a computer hacker stole an older student’s Facebook identity and then pressured a grade five pupil to provide pornographic images of himself to a Facebook “friend”…

Youth worker Les Twentyman has also revealed that he was told about a girl in year eight at a school in Victoria’s east recently being lured into performing sex acts with year 12 boys that were filmed and posted on the Internet. Read more.

Police warn on ‘juvie hunting’

POLICE and teachers have grave concerns about an emerging youth phenomenon dubbed “juvie hunting”, where older teenage boys groom younger girls for sex.

Sources say juvenile hunting is rife in Perth schools where boys aged 16 and 17 target younger teenage girls in a contest driven by popularity and status.

The Sunday Times understands that teachers at several Perth 2schools, including Sacred Heart College in Sorrento, lectured Year 12 boys about the possibility of criminal charges if they have sex with a girl younger than 16, the legal age of consent…

Police had received more reports of offences against children since mandatory reporting came into place last year. Read full story here.

Preyed upon and pressured to provide porn images. Preyed upon and molested. Preyed upon and forced to provide sex acts. Girls are targetted for all this at younger ages and many boys seems to think they are entitled to do whatever they like to them.

We have to turn this around. Girls need to be informed of their rights. They need to demand an end to this. And the boys who act in these ways need to know it is illegal. And if they don’t stop, those in authority over them must  act quickly to make them see how serious this is and that there really are consequences.

I’d really like to hear less of these accounts. I’d like to hear some good stories from girls.

Australia-wide sexual assault services

Men are stereotyped too

Came across this father’s day ad in The Weekend Australia magazine.

Right here we have a snapshot of the stereotypes that limit men and contribute to socialising them into standard – and often harmful – ways of behaving.

The ad spruiks six SBS DVDs for dad. The first is ‘The Killing’, the second ‘Erotic tales’ and the next four  are soccer matches.

Death, sex and sport. What more does a man need? The heading says ‘DAD. DVD. DONE’. I wonder who is purchasing ‘Erotic Tales’ for their father? “I’ll have an Erotic Tales for my dad thanks. Oh hang on make that two, I’ll get one for grand-dad as well”.

Is this how men want to be seen? The men I know and mix with don’t.

This socialisation into sex and violence starts early. I recently interviewed Maggie Hamilton about her new book What’s Happening to Our Boys?  She argues that we are knocking the tenderness out of boys at the youngest of ages. If you read my post on computer games for boys, you will have to agree.

In the same way women are resisting negative and harmful stereotypes about them, men need to as well. Including on father’s day.

The latest in eroticised violence in advertising

There’s no shortage of material documenting the mind numbing levels of violence against women and girls in the world. This blog is in many ways a testament to that, documenting the treatment of women and girls in the 21^st century, lest we forget the scale of human rights violations against them.

But some corporations don’t seem particularly troubled by this reality. In fact, they’ve appropriated violence against women as a hot new source of creative advertising possibilities. We’ve seen a growth in eroticised violence in advertising and celebrity fashion and promotional shoots, which I’ve written about here before in a piece called ‘You look so good in blood’. 

U.S blogger Shelby Knox has  written this week about the latest manifestation of this trend, this time by Gucci. She’s given me permission to reprint her blog here. Most of my readers probably can’t afford to buy Gucci anyway, but for those who can, please….don’t.

Gucci Ads: Dead women are in for Autumn

Here we go again with the high fashion obsession with beautiful, dead women. Gucci’s fall ad campaign was shot in the Marrakech desert but the photos look like something from an episode of CSI.

Hell, if I wore an ostrich motorcycle jacket and velvet pants into the middle of the Moroccan desert, and brought along a $2400 bag instead of a canteen, I’d probably drop dead too. But “dead in the dirt” is creepy and unsettling, no matter how high the heels. In this photo, Raquel Zimmerman and Joan Smalls lie prone and limp while a man circles them like a vulture, taking in the grotesque view.

Same models, same prone poses. Is that their car in the background? Did the expressionless man highjack and kill them?  What’s he going to do with them now that they’re sprawled on his hood?

Of course, you can’t do a beautiful corpse ad campaign without at least one picture that expressly hints at violence and rape. In this shot, Nikola Jovanovic is perched upon his golden throne leering down at Raquel Zimmerman, whose skirt is hiked up to her thigh, legs askew. His foot positioned strategically over her throat makes it disgustingly clear he can do, perhaps already has done, whatever he likes to the motionless model.

Gucci certainly isn’t the first to use female dead bodies in their ads. Beautiful corpses are an extension of the almost universal objectification of women in advertising combined with the trope that says helpless, silent women are the best kind. Rendering women dead, or at least disturbingly unconscious, strips them of their agency and sexualizes violence against them. Gucci’s glorification of violence normalizes something that’s already far too prevalent – in the United States, 3 women per day are murdered by their intimate partners. Something tells me those crime scenes are decidedly less picture perfect.

Female singers ‘flogging themselves as sex objects’: even music industry figure says it’s gone too far

When a leading music industry figure says things have gone too far regarding pornography imagery in music video clips, then you know things have really gone too far.

Mike Stock, formerly of Stock Aitken Waterman records and best known as Kylie Minogue’s former producer, has gone public against the music industry trend towards pornographic music videos and the way it has become pretty much normal for female artists to allow themselves to be depicted in highly sexualised ways. “Ninety-nine per cent of the charts is R n B and 99 percent of that is soft pornography”, Stock said.

Two pieces worth reading on this.

The first in the Mail Online, titled ‘Lady Gaga IS poisoning children’s minds’

Pop music has always used subtle sexual innuendo, but once it wasn’t de rigueur…

Now raunchy R&B and hip-hop seem to have a stranglehold on the market, so that what used to be edgy and extreme is now the commercial mainstream.

One of the results is that female singers are happy to flog themselves as sex objects…

Female singers seem to think that the only way to sell their albums is to flash their gussets, while looking mean, vacant and up for it… 

But such porn-fashion infects the majority of pop videos — from Katy Perry’s wide-eyed suggestiveness to Britney Spears’s tired old sleaze.

Read the article here.

My mate Melinda Liszewski, also a founder of Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation  has just posted this piece on the Collective Shout website, ‘Soft core porn on Saturday mornings’. The blog post contains some really good ideas about what you can do about this and reminds us that the Government agreed stronger regulation of music videos was required. If they are re-elected, make them act on this. If they aren’t, work on the new one!

‘A scathing examination of pop’s use and abuse of women’

If you want in-your-face, take no prisoners, powerful documentary evidence of the contempt for women in today’s music videos, Dreamworlds is a must see. I saw it last year on a get together of fellow Collective Shout activists and felt shaken by the experience. The scene of Nelly swiping a credit card down a woman’s backside in the clip for ‘Tip drill’ is chilling. So is another of male singers entertaining themselves by throwing chunks of raw meat against a woman’s naked body. A perfect illustration of their view of women as meat, really.

Produced by Media Education Foundation, Dreamworlds 3 is described here:

…the highly anticipated update of Sut Jhally’s groundbreaking Dreamworlds 2 (1995), examines the stories contemporary music videos tell about girls and women, and encourages viewers to consider how these narratives shape individual and cultural attitudes about sexuality.

Illustrated with hundreds of up-to-date images, Dreamworlds 3 offers a unique and powerful tool for understanding both the continuing influence of music videos and how pop culture more generally filters the identities of young men and women through a dangerously narrow set of myths about sexuality and gender. In doing so, it inspires viewers to reflect critically on images that they might otherwise take for granted.

Watch the trailer here:

This is not an industry that values women for their actual talent. We need to demand more of it.