Lady Gaga presents an extremely empowered vision of sex and sexiness. Hers is a million miles away from the cynical, soulless titillation of your average Britney Spears video; of …Baby One More Time, say (in which Spears, who was 17, dressed as a schoolgirl and beseeched whoever to “Hit me, baby, one more time…”). It’s the opposite of the sex offered in most R&B and hip-hop videos, in which unnamed, interchangeable bikini-clad models dance for the slathering delectation of the male recording artists. Because men dance for Lady Gaga.

Gaga owns this version of sex and she’s not asking you to approve it. She’s a complete pop icon – but she’s no pin-up. She hasn’t bothered constructing a version of herself designed to please a straight male audience. Lady Gaga doesn’t do pretty, or available, or submissive, or obviously glamorous. Instead she does scary, she does theatrical, she does brave.

And these are my thoughts exactly. Perhaps a pop princess like Spears is indeed presenting an oversexualised image and encouraging young girls to dress/dance/act in a provocative manner. Lady Gaga I think not. To me, Lady Gaga represents a different kind of sexuality, one which in my eyes is certainly not run of the mill heterosexual. And perhaps Mike Stock wouldn’t feel comfortable watching a Lady Gaga with his children or mother, but I certainly would.

CWS at University of York Announces A Carnival of Feminist Cultural Activism

Carol Ann Duffy Reading, Questions and Book Signing in Lincoln

On Friday 2nd July I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to attend the ‘Not PowerPoint Again! Presenting Research on Women in Popular Culture’ Day School at the University of York. The day itself was organised by two PhD students, Rosemary Hill and Julia Carter, from the Centre for Women’s Studies at the university itself. Set over the course of three ‘Acts’, the day itself comprised of a total of 10 speakers, each with very different pieces of research.

Act One opened with Julia Triston, a textile artist, designer and lecturer based in the North East. Julia presented her Bra-ra dresses, made out of donated bras, and her knicker-bunting – 90metres of bunting made from knickers with buttons for weightin. The bra-ra dresses were fantastic and we were asked to read out excerpts of letters submitted with the bras. Some were exceedingly personal, for instance the donater diagnosed with cancer, whilst others were light-hearted and raised many a smile. The bunting itself was extraordionary. Julia had us pass it around the circle from start to finish. It was peculiar seeing all the different shapes and sizes; it truly was a reflection of real woman out there in Britain. Julia commented on how this was part of the performance; considering your feelings of handling someone else’s underwear. Julia is still accepting donations and more information on her work can be found here and here.

Act One continued with Rosemary Hill utilising hand puppets to consider narratives between Heavy Metal Fans and Emos, and their consideration of females. Rosemary has also recently been interviewed for Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed about subcutlures (certainly worth a listening). Next was Amy Pressland whose work considers women in sport. By using an interactive quiz, Amy showed ideas regarding the visibility of sportswomen in British media. Act Two opened with M.Geneva Murray and Elizabeth Thomas who had both, seperately, considered roller derby in their research. Again, this was a real interactive presentation inviting input from the audience. I found really interesting the idea of bruises and whether they were a badge of honour. And how dress code for Roller Derby was quite often at odds with how members would usually dress. Act Two closed with Caroline Lucas who performed a piece she had composed with dialogue running over and considered gender and nation. This composed piece itself was great and I wanted to find out more about it but whilst Caroline had pointed out why some sounds were included it didn’t seem the place for a full disclosure of the piece itself. However, some very interesting points were raised by the piece.

The day closed with Act Three which was a zine making workshop with Ann Kaloski Naylor which pulled together ideas from the day, putting them into practice. This was a really good idea to finish off the day and there was opporunity to consider each other’s zines before leaving. The day itself really provided food for thought regarding presenting research to others (and not just using the powerpoint which has become the accepted, dominant tool) whilst getting to hear about other’s research into women. The CWS are organising a ‘Cultural Activism’ conference for next year, keep your eye(s) out!

Like Marmite, I dislike Maggie Thatcher but where do you fit on the love/hate divide and why?

The sexist treatment of women within music is nothing new, both audience and musicians alike. At festivals and gigs, there have been previous issues raised regarding the groping of female crowd surfers and musicians, for example. However I do not believe that the showing of such text images and this treatment by camera crew would arise at some other festivals as the female as a sexual object seens a recurring feature of metal and rock music. Regardless, such sexist attitudes should not be encouraged.

I’ve set up a Facebook group is to make public the treatment of female fans by film-crew and image organisers at Download Festival. The end result will hopefully be a request to the organisers of Download to alter such behaviour.

Update: The conference has just, unfortunately, announced it will no longer run.

Secondly King’s College, London are running a seminar series in 2010/2011 entitled ‘Pornified? complicating the debates about the sexualisation of culture’ which will end in a international conference in Nov. 2011. Details can be found here.

Last but not least, head over to the Gender and Education Association. The web-site is jammed pack with resources, links, news and media regarding Gender and Education. So if that’s your bag, you’ll be very happy indeed!