Friday, 9 February 2007

"Raunch Culture"

Remaining with today’s Guardian and sexual matters, if young women wish to arrest the rising respectability of pornography, lap-dancing and the like (and good luck to them if they do), then they are going to have to face the fact that feminism sold the pass on this half a generation ago, with the rise of male strippers at hen nights and the like. The argument that the "power dynamic", or what have you, is completely different is unsustainable: it is true that men currently out-earn women, have more political clout, and so on; but (albeit for reasons addressed in a previous post here, and no doubt in subsequent ones as well), girls now massively out-perform boys in school examinations, so who knows what the future situation might be?

When I was on supply in secondary schools a couple of years ago, the routine sexual harassment and even assault of boys by girls was astonishing, and would rightly have led to exclusions and even prosecutions if it had been in the other direction. This is very much of a piece with the jaw-dropping language, conversation and behaviour that many girls now think perfectly normal, and for which they apparently enjoy full impunity that boys certainly would not and do not. I understand that it was historically known as "girl power", but is now called "laddette culture" and "raunch culture". Heaven help us all!

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