Posts Tagged ‘Sexism’
Feb
17
Last week I wrote a post about the UCC Tramps ball after receiving an email from a UCC student branding the event sexist.
Opening the feminist.ie email yesterday, I was delighted to find the below email from the UCC equality officer (whom I sent a link to the blog post):
“Please see below the reply from the Entertainments Manager and Officer.
“I am writing to reply to the issues raised with regards to the UCC Students Union Tramps Ball 2011. Having reviewed the text and tenure of the advertising for this event the Students Union has decided to cease all association with Tramps Ball in the Savoy 17-02-11.
We are in the process of having the Facebook page promoting the event closed down. We have asked the Deputy President of the SU to have all references to the Tramps Ball in the Savoy removed from the www.collegeroad.ie website.
We are removing the event from the Raise and Give Week entertainments itinerary. We expect to have all of these measures completed by close of business today ( Feb 15th).
We deeply regret any offence or upset caused and will do all in our power that there will not be a recurrence of this.”
It’s brilliant to see that the issue has been raised and dealt with. A decision Trinity could definitely learn from.
Tagged: naked for charity, Sexism, sexist college events, Sexualised society, Trinity College, University College Cork
Feb
11
Sexist ad of the year, brought to you by AA Patrol. From today’s MetroHerald.
Tagged: Gender stereotyping, Sexism, Sexist ads
Feb
09
Looks like students at UCC and Trinity have equally poor taste when it comes to organising events.
And it looks like staff and boards members (and indeed the equality committee) of UCC, like Trinity, don’t seem particularly bothered by the fact that their own and their employer’s name is associated with events featuring playboy strippers, photo booths with playboy bunnies, strip shows, and strippers playboy parties.
And as if the above stripping galore wasn’t enough for one week, they’ve managed to squeeze in the inevitable naked calendar for charity as well.
Tagged: naked for charity, Sexism, sexist college events, Sexualised society, University College Cork
Jan
24
Sky’s Richard Keys and Andy Gray have a sexist rant about a female linesman – and complete it by whining about Karren Brady (barely) mentioning sexism in her Sun column.
Give yourselves a break, please. A permanent one.
Tagged: media, Sexism, Sport
Jan
19
This year’s Trinity students can kick off the year with the Gumball Challenge.
If you’re a guy, this might include drinking from a water gun.
If you’re a girl however, you can be challenged to take of your pants, pin a Playboy bunny tail to your underpants and have some red-handed guy grab you while a photographer is taking a close-up of your ass.
Or you can have your picture taken while you’re having a tattoo done. Somehow the picture might turn out looking like you’re posing for a lads’ mag rather than actually having an impromptu tattoo made though.
Alternatively, you can drink from a tube, but have a picture taken making it look like you were actually making out with your friend.
And then all these pictures can be used to sex up a poster for next year’s event. Brilliant!
For a university still operating with rule books from the 16th century, they’re pretty liberal when it comes to allowing their students to spread sexism and contribute to the sexualisation of society.
It didn’t take many months living in Dublin before I lost count of how many sexist posters I’d seen in there.
For some reason, it seems to be okay with staff, students and board members of Trinity college that every person walking through campus, including students’ potential future employers and thousands of tourists, is greeted with breasts and half-naked asses promoting the next event organised by the agricultural society or something similarly irrelevant.
If anyone wondered how it came about that senior associates at PwC, a highly regarded financial company in Dublin, sent around sexist emails rating female staff members last year, the tolerance for such culture in top educational institutions possibly accounts for some of it.
If the gender equality society is still active, I suggest they gather all the sexist posters over the next term and make an official complaint.
If Trinity is half the brilliant educational institution breeding the country’s next elite they like to promote themselves as, they should demand that their students come up with something better than an ass the next time they want to promote an event.
Tagged: Sexism, Sexualised society, Students, Trinity College
Nov
24
To add to the public sexism we’ve seen over the last week, Cowen yesterday told party leader Gilmore to ‘try and rein her in now and again’ when the Labour spokeswoman on finance interrupted him during an announcement in the Dáil.
Cowen apologised, but did not think the subject was worth getting into an argument about.
Thanks to the brilliant Journal.ie, you can listen to the sound bite here.
Tagged: Politics, Sexism, Women in politics
Nov
15
I read about this funny comic in the Observer Magazine this weekend, and thought I’d share it. It’s from www.gabbysplayhouse.com. The comments are also worth a read (if you have a few hours to spare)…..
From gabbysplayhouse.com
Tagged: Blogging, Cartoons, Sexism
Nov
10
Illustration from Flickr
PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of Ireland’s largest accountancy firms, have launched an internal investigation after male staff circulated emails where they rated the looks of women who had recently joined the company.
The email included pictures of 13 women, accompanied by names and the departments they work in. The subject line of the email was ‘this would be my shortlist for the top 10′.
According to the Irish Independent, a highly derogatory female description was used in one of the emails. The email started off as an internal office email, but has since been forwarded to numerous Irish businesses including finance companies, accountants, law firms, technology firms, state bodies and construction firms.
Many people would see this as a bit of innocent fun (I’m sure some would even say the women in question should be flattered), but it’s not. There is no reason for random people to be presented with pictures, name and workplace of women they’ve never even met and read other random people’s rating of their appearance. These women are not celebrities who have made a conscious effort to be in the public eye, they are business people who have made a great effort to get a good education and land a job in a respected company.
It’s highly inappropriate and unprofessional to reduce co-workers from skilled professionals to whether they are physically attractive or not. And there is no way this isn’t going to have some impact on the way these women are perceived in the company. Though most people would be capable of seeing beyond the comments circulated, the comments and ranking of these women will definitely be among the first thing that pops into their colleagues’ heads upon meeting them.
Despite probably being deemed harmless by many, this incident is an unfortunate product of the frantic focus on looks and beauty, and give fuel to the perception that the most important trait in a woman is being attractive.
Tagged: Beauty, News, Sexism, Work
