Tag Archives: gender bias

SISTER SCRIBES: KITTY WILSON ON LETTING BOOKS BE BOOKS

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My latest articles for Frost (with the exception of my last) have all been based around why I write and read romance. I’ve written about the universality of romance and about how I see the genre as one that gives hope. Today I’m going to talk about something a little more controversial, about why I think the romance genre can have a bad name.

When I was first published I had so much support but I also encountered a lot of bias from friends who were unable to understand why I chose to write romance, dismissive of the genre as pure trash (their words). It is not an uncommon view, even people who love the genre often refer to it as such with a self-deprecating laugh.

But why? I can’t help but think this bias harks back to the birth of the popular romance novel specifically written for women a couple of hundred years ago because delicate female minds couldn’t possibly expect to understand the intricacies of politics, economics, science. The world has moved on from such misogyny, yet despite us recognising today that skill in all sorts of arenas is not gender based, society is still struggling to shift the notion that romance books are somehow lesser, that their readers, and writers, lack erudition. We accept in life that you have to be remarkably skilled to make things look easy and somehow we still don’t apply this to books considered easy reads. I know so many people, women and men, who love to escape with a romance novel precisely because it’s an escape. If a book is effectively providing a haven, you are losing yourself in its world, then it is well-written.

When we look at the romance genre and remove this bias and examine what romance and its broad range of sub-genres really are, we see that it tends to be fiction that centres around friendship and family life with the thrill of romance and often a dash of good sex thrown in as well. They are books that usually put women at the fore (an exception being MM romances). We also know from what is (or certainly was) on the curriculum in schools that it’s largely male-centric books that society deems worthy of reading. If you examine the syllabi when I was growing up, you will see that predominantly books written by men for men about men were considered literature. This contributes to shaping society’s attitudes about what constitutes a good book. Whilst I genuinely believe this is changing now (hurrah!) and particularly within the last decade – women-centric books are now universally accepted as literature – it seems that easy-to-read books about women having fun or getting caught up in romance are still deemed less worthy.

Romance books frequently examine love and affection, how it’s human to crave it; they open up discussions about love, loneliness, sexuality and so forth which allows for conversations about these things to become normalised. They have done this for centuries, from women gossiping about the latest romance in Regency coffee houses to chatter over the water cooler about Christian Grey. And where there is discussion there is education, an increased awareness of others’ (and self) needs and preferences can only be a good thing. There are always lessons to be learned in life about understanding ourselves and others, improving communication and strengthening the relationships we have with people. If romance helps this and the bias against it harks back to attitudes we know are outdated then surely, regardless of personal taste, it’s time for romance novels to be accorded the respect they deserve.

 

 

The Moment of Lift By Melinda Gates Book Review

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The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World, the moment of lift, Melinda Gates, book reviewThe Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World

Melinda Gates is the perfect example of an extraordinary woman who does not get the credit she deserves because she just happens to be married to a rich, famous man. It would be easy to dismiss her on the basis of privilege, and many people do. But to judge a woman by her husband is sexist. Melinda Gates stands as a giant in her own right. She has done so much for women’s rights and to make the world a better place. Her new book, The Moment of Lift, should be read by every single person in the world. Then the world would be a better place for everyone. Full of blistering facts and, yes, some harrowing tales; The Moment of Lift is a call to action. The book is powerful and puts up the fights for women’s rights. I hear that women have never had it so good a lot, and yet there is still so much to be done. I challenge anyone to read this book and not be inspired. When you read it you want to do something. The book covers so many aspects of gender bias: from FGM, contraception and inequality at home. Even the fact that most women do most of the domestic work is in here, and so it should be. Only recently was childcare and domestic world including by economists when it came fo GDP. Women’s work has been largely invisible and, in many ways, still is. Melinda also writes about herself and her marriage in this book. She is honest and brave. Her voice is in this book and so is her strength. It is powerful stuff. This book is essential reading and gets Frost’s Gold Standard stamp of approval. Only the second thing so far to do so.

 

A debut from Melinda Gates, a timely and necessary call to action for women’s empowerment.

“How can we summon a moment of lift for human beings – and especially for women? Because when you lift up women, you lift up humanity.”

For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop keeping women down.

In this moving and compelling book, Melinda shares lessons she’s learned from the inspiring people she’s met during her work and travels around the world. As she writes in the introduction, “That is why I had to write this book – to share the stories of people who have given focus and urgency to my life. I want all of us to see ways we can lift women up where we live.”

Melinda’s unforgettable narrative is backed by startling data as she presents the issues that most need our attention – from child marriage to lack of access to contraceptives to gender inequity in the workplace. And, for the first time, she writes about her personal life and the road to equality in her own marriage. Throughout, she shows how there has never been more opportunity to change the world – and ourselves.

Writing with emotion, candour, and grace, she introduces us to remarkable women and shows the power of connecting with one another.

When we lift others up, they lift us up, too.

The Moment of Lift is available here.

Shocking New Study Reveals Overwhelming Sexism in TV & Film Ads

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Patricia Arquette , speech, feminism, oscar speech, equal pay, Winner of Best Actress In A Supporting Role Oscar 2015Women may be fighting for equality but there is still a long way to go. TV, cinema and online adverts are overwhelmingly biased against women, with men appearing on screen FOUR times more than women, and men speaking SEVEN times more than women, according to groundbreaking new research.

The study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media – founded by the Thelma and Louise star – and ad agency JWT New York, looked at more than 2,000 ads from over the last 10 years to get the results.

The report, released at the 2017 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – the biggest global event in the advertising world  –  also found:

·       Women are twice more likely than men to be shown partially or fully nude.

·       There are twice as many male characters in ads than female characters.

·       25% of ads feature men only, while only 5% of ads feature women only.

·      18% of ads feature only male voices, while less than 3% of ads featuring female voices only.

·        Women in ads are mostly in their 20s while men are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

·        Men are almost twice as likely to be funny than women.

·        One in 10 female characters are shown in sexually revealing clothing – six times the number of male characters.

·        Men are 62% more likely to be shown as intelligent.

·        Women are 48% more likely to be shown in the kitchen while men are 50% more likely to be shown at a sporting event.

·        One in three men are shown to have a job compared to one in four women.

 

The researchers concluded that female presence and portrayal in ads has not changed or improved for more than a decade, from 2006 to this day.

The report, called Unpacking Gender Bias in Advertising, examined a decade’s worth of winners and entries to the Cannes Lions Awards – the Oscars of the ad industry – using automation to analyse the split between men and women.

It aims at raising awareness of explicit and implicit gender bias in advertising, and its powerful ripple effects in the world.

Madeline Di Nonno, CEO of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, said: “By changing the narrative, the images we use, the stories we tell about women, we can dramatically change the way the world values women and how women and girls see themselves. It’s not enough to portray more women. We need a more progressive and inclusive representation of women.”

Brent Choi, Chief Creative Officer, J. Walter Thompson New York: “What this research shows is that our industry has tent-pole moments, amazing actions or campaigns when we all rally around women, but when it comes to creating our ‘regular’ ads for our ‘regular’ clients, we forget about them.”
The research from The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media at Mount Saint Mary’s University and J. Walter Thompson New York, in collaboration with University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering, analysed more than 2,000 films from the Cannes Lions archive (English language only).