Tag: porn

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Reviewer

#EmptyShelf 2016 #25: Girl Up by Laura Bates (@EverydaySexism) (Simon & Schuster, 2016)

laura-bates-girl-upWell, would you believe it? I’ve read a book that’s been out for less than a month, and less than a week after I bought it! The blurb says:

They told you to wear longer skirts, avoid going out late at night and move in groups – never accept drinks from a stranger, and wear shoes you can run in more easily than heels.

They told you to wear just enough make-up to look presentable but not enough to be a slut; to dress to flatter your apple, pear, hourglass figure, but not to be too tarty.

They warned you that if you try to be strong, or take control, you’ll be shrill, bossy, a ballbreaker. Of course it’s fine for the boys, but you should know your place.

They told you ‘that’s not for girls’ – ‘take it as a compliment’ – ‘don’t rock the boat’ – ‘that’ll go straight to your hips’.

They told you ‘beauty is on the inside’, but you knew they didn’t really mean it.

Well screw that. I’m here to tell you something else.

Hilarious, jaunty and bold, GIRL UP exposes the truth about the pressures surrounding body image, the false representations in media, the complexities of a sex and relationships, the trials of social media and all the other lies they told us.

To be honest, I hadn’t twigged that the book was designed for teenagers, but that makes it pretty easy to read, pretty honest, and having look at so much for Raising Children in a Digital Age, there’s some useful and interesting content in there, including this, related to bullying:

2016-05-10 22.36.42

Clearly much of the material comes from a strongly feminist agenda, which I’m getting pretty familiar with, but this nearly made me choke on my reading:

In fact, men are so much more confident about applying when they don’t fit the full criteria that when one university advertised a women-only position, THIRTY men applied for the job.

Another bit that deals with structural inequalities was particularly insightful – and there’s no dumbing down (but plenty of humour/visuals) in this book:

sexism-1

sexism-2

The book deals with public role models, including the limited representations in film, body image, a lot about sex and knowing your own body, the problems of sex that is being represented in the porn industry (why don’t we understand that the ‘fiction’ we see in e.g. Star Wars is being enacted in porn films – lighting, script, etc.), the ‘pressures’ of social media, and on pp. 302-303 asks ‘Can I be a feminist and also be [insert religion here]?’ – with an unqualified yes as an answer.

I’ll leave you with a quote from p.251

It’s clever, because we think of the media as reflecting the world around us, so it’s very powerful in convincing us that this is ‘the way things are’ and the way we are expected to behave and look, when in reality the media reflects the childish and narrow fantasies of a very small group of very powerful men.

Has that whetted your appetite? Buy the book here.

Categories
Digital

Response to NSPCC Porn Research

nspcc-logo-1024x485You know that the other week I responded to the NSPCC report on children and pornography (here and here), here’s an interesting response on the quality of the research:

The NSPCC has been accused of “deliberately whipping up a moral panic” with a study suggesting a tenth of all 12- to 13-year-olds fear they are “addicted” to pornography.

In an open letter to the child protection organisation’s chief executive Peter Wanless, a group of doctors, academics, journalists and campaigners criticised the NSPCC for “suggesting that pornography is causing harm to new generations of young people”.

Read full article.

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Digital Media & Press Media - Audio

[MEDIA] Radio Interviews re @MarthaLaneFox #DimblebyLecture and @NSPCC Report

First thing spotted on the phone this morning – an invitation to comment on Martha Lane-Fox’s statement that we have no choice but to engage with the internet:

listen to ‘Pros and Cons of the Internet after #DimblebyLecture for BBC Tees ’ on audioBoom

Then there was a Tweet from one of the producers at Radio 5 Live, which resulted in this conversation:

listen to ‘Discussing Children, Porn and the Internet with @bbcfivelive’ on audioBoom

And then an email via my website from BBC Three Counties Radio resulted in this interview:

listen to ‘Discussing Children, Porn & the Internet with @BBC3CR’ on audioBoom

Categories
Digital

#DigitalParenting: More Protection for Children Against Porn?

Story today in the news:

Stronger action must be taken to protect children from online bullying and pornography, MPs have said.

Internet firms are also warned they may face prosecution for failing to show commitment to safeguarding youngsters.

The Commons culture, media and sport committee said efforts by the industry to eradicate child porn may prove “woefully insufficient”.

Read more on BBC Online

So here’s a few thoughts from my book:

books-at-launchThe media have focused heavily on the “dangers of porn” online for children, to the extent that many parents feel they are powerless to stop it. Professor Livingstone adds that debate in this area can be difficult, as the media tend to mix up a range of complex issues into one big scare story. The EU Kids Online survey demonstrated that only 6,000 of the 25,000 children surveyed had encountered even a single sexual image online, still a high number but not every child, in contrast to the media impression.

The tendency for young people to search for adult material of a sexual nature has been common for years; in many ways it’s a “rite of passage”. The core difference is that it took some effort to acquire printed pornographic material, whereas huge amounts circulate freely online, much of it more hard-core and violent in nature than before. Those who deliberately seek this material out online tend to know how to delete their internet history and cookies, so parents may not be aware or may think that their child surely couldn’t be into such things. The EU Kids Online survey demonstrated that, because it’s so easily available online, many think that it is fine: no one can see them and they are sure that they won’t get caught.

….

In the early 2000s, as worries about young people accessing pornography rose, filtering software was proposed as the solution. The arguments continue:

If car manufacturers had no responsibility for safety measures – i.e. car seats for children, airbags, seat belts – and it was entirely up to parents if they chose to use these, there would be an outcry. So what is the difference with social networking sites? We know the dangers; we know there are negligent parents. We have to protect the children whose
parents can’t or won’t.

Tom Wood, a sixteen-year-old schoolboy, broke into Australia’s $84-million internet porn filter in less than thirty minutes, and as a result recommended that the focus for child internet safety be elsewhere: on educating children to protect themselves and their privacy. Filtering software is valuable for younger children, but we have to expect that older children will try to get around the protection, so don’t expect that you can install it and your job is done. Take time to understand how, when and where your children are accessing the internet, and how to deal with distressing material when they come across it. As Sally Peck wrote in The Telegraph:

No matter how hard you try, you will not be able to police your child’s exposure to everything vile until he is 30.

Categories
Digital

11 Stories About #DigitalParenting 17/12/13

Keeping track of a number of stories relating to ‘Raising Children in a Digital Age‘ in the news… and I love this piece about a ‘tech-deprived childhood‘:

News on digital tablet.

  • Link between cyberbullying and teen suicides oversimplified, experts say: One of the threads tying their deaths together is a cause-and-effect link made by the media, politicians and parents between persistent bullying and the victim’s decision to end their life — a phenomenon that generated its own buzzword — “bullycide.” It is something Todd and health experts say oversimplifies teen suicide and cyberbullying at the expense of recognizing the complex set of mental health issues that are usually at play in many cases. (In another article, teens speak out) 
  • Left to Chance With the iPotty: Snarkiness aside, I think we need to reflect loudly about how we make choices as parents and consumers. Corporate America and big box retailers may not have your back in this regard. As these baby human beings’ brains are rapidly making connections (young children make 700 synapses [connections between brain cells] per second during birth to 2 years), they are simply learning how to think. Do you really want the iPad doing the instructing?
  • I Might Be Mediocre, But at Least I’m Honest: So why is it that we parents feel the need to hide our realities from the world, especially social media? Check any mom’s Instagram or Facebook feed, including my own, and it looks like we are running a regular Montessori. The kids are smiling and sun-kissed. There’s paint and Legos and fresh fruit dripping from their chins.
  • Why You Need to Get Involved in Your Child’s Digital Life: Responsible parental screening of a child’s behavior has always been a good idea. But in today’s age of increasingly advanced technology, parents face unique challenges. While there certainly are advantages to instant access of virtually any kind of information, there are also formidable risks associated with our digital age that can be quite damaging to kids if parents don’t exercise appropriate levels of control. Put another way — damage can be done if parents don’t do their job.
  • Weston man faces child porn charges: Microsoft regularly uses automated scanning tools to monitor photos and other content uploaded to SkyDrive to ensure that users’ accounts do not contain illegal files, according to the company’s website. Suspected child pornography is automatically reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
  • Tarter: Author touts printed page in the digital age: The author also suggests that e-books have their place. “The e-book is here to stay,” he says, pointing to savings in time, space, trees and student spines (replacing heavy textbooks). But Trelease isn’t afraid to point to shortcomings in new technology, as well. “Research clearly shows that we read more slowly (6 to 11 percent) from a screen than from paper,” he said.
  • 7 Practical Tips for Parenting Digital Natives: “What are your recommendations for balancing technology use with socializing face-to-face?” This question was directed to a panel of psychologists at our recent high school PTA meeting. A universal parenting dilemma in our social media landscape, if ever one existed post-1999.
  • Drawp: Imaginations Soar With Inventive Art App For Kids: With this release, Drawp is launching a collaboration with talented artists from around the world who will create coloring pages exclusively for the Drawp app. The objective is to provide children with a constant stream of high quality art and to expose them to different styles in order to stimulate their creativity.
  • Europe Children Between 4 and 12 Spend Almost 3 Hours a Day in Front of TV: Children watch, passively, television, computers, mobile phones or ipads. Given this reality, a team of British pediatricians asserts in a research released in the medical journal “Archives of Disease in Childhood” that children under three should not be in contact with so many digital displays. For kids between 3 and 16, they suggest that a maximum of two hours a day should be set. The experts argue that spending more time in front of screens can cause damage to the physical and cognitive growth of children and overweight, heart problems, attention deficit or lack of empathy.
  • Internet a safe place for those who play safe: “Although the majority of kids are doing good things there is still a small percentage of people doing bad things and those predators are the people we need to protect our children from.”
  • iPad holder seat for babies sparks outcry: An advocacy group has called on toy maker Fisher-Price to stop selling a baby seat designed to hold an iPad at the front, saying the product encourages parents to leave infants alone to watch screens that could be harmful.

and BT offers a parental control filter, a Mum talks about finding another mum of a child with a rare condition, whilst programmes in New Zealand seek to diminish the ‘digital divide’.