Dom Harvey is a coward.

There has been a lot of back and forth about the stupidity of Dom Harvey taking still frames of a woman dancing in order to get a photo of her knickers/three pairs of stockings/leotard.

First things first. Most performers don’t get to choose their costumes. If they do try to, they get labeled difficult. Any performer knows this. So slut shaming someone for an outfit they don’t chose is a pretty low hit.

Secondly, in order to see ANYTHING of a smutty level in a dance outfit there would have to be a serious malfunction. When I was dancing I wore a g string, then my skin tone tights, then my costume undies, then, then fishnets or costume tights, then my leotard or skirt. Sorry to ruin the day of the losers responsible for this being an actual thing on google search

But you aren’t gonna see anything, no matter how much time you waste re watching and freezing shots to take pics. Creep.

My next point has not been covered yet as far as I can see. There has been a lot of discussion about what is and isn’t funny and who is and isn’t public property, and what parts of a woman’s body are and aren't ok to view if it is already “out there”. But there has been no mention of the cowardice involved.

Cowardice? What? This was a quick joke. He picked the only obvious target right?

 She was the only appropriate target... the only woman wearing a dress short enough to catch a glimpse of her knickers as she executed a lift or jump. The only person who would be suitable for this “Joke”.
Well GOLLY. If only there was a woman there dancing incredibly with her legs in the air in a similar fashion on the same show, on that same night. A woman with media power, a woman with the power to change people’s careers because she is well connected. A woman who if she didn’t like the joke could really mess with Dom Harvey’s future. A woman with the Queen’s service medal.

  *cough*.

If only such a woman existed, Dom Harvey could have used her as his target and proved his claims of humor, punching up, and showing that he takes the mickey out of everyone, no matter how powerful. If only there were such a woman, the joke might work. It wouldn’t be a pathetic little perve taking the mickey out of a woman who has so little control out of her image that this may be the one thing she is remembered for.

If he had used Candy, the joke still wouldn’t be a good one, it would still be creepy as hell. But if she has the power to respond without the entirety of New Zealand media shitting on her, that would be a start right??

Pity there was no other woman he could have chosen… then people might have noticed what a coward he was.

Shouting from water skis

Sometimes being a woman in a male dominated field feels a bit like trying to teach from water-skis.

No, water-skis are not the best platform to teach from.

No,  people don’t hear you as well over the roar of engines and water.

Yes, you will probably fail more often

You lose people’s attention more when people are focused on where you are, rather than what you are saying.

It’s exhausting, and even the easiest lesson is hard to do from a difficult place to stand.

But if that is the ONLY space you have to teach from, and people will watch because of the spectacle then what are you going to do?

Quit and lose your voice and audience?

Fight for a better space and risk people refusing to tow you?

Or carry on, and hope like hell that eventually someone sees how stupid this is and gives you a more appropriate space to teach from in the future.

All of the above options are entirely legitimate, and I wouldn’t judge anyone who took any of those options. I also don’t blame people who don’t even go into those spaces because they aren’t well enough, fit enough, have enough time, or can deal with the stress of such an unpleasant work environment.

Refusing to work on skis isn’t unreasonable.

Refusing to provide a better space for women to work and have a platform IS.

The fact that some of our most interesting scientists in New Zealand (I can name Siouxsie Wiles, Christine Winterbourn, Heather Hendrickson, Margaret Brimble, and Judy O'Brien off the top of my head) are not seen regularly in our media is a damn waste, and frankly it’s a bit of a surprise that even Souxsie with her bright pink hair and award for science communication, is mostly under the mainstream radar.

Dr Dickinson is getting there, and she is getting there on the shittiest water skis possible. BUT SHE IS GETTING THERE.

While we watch the rubbish she has to deal with, hoops she has to jump through, and unreasonableness of her environment, let’s take the focus off the stunts she has to pull, and on why that’s the ONLY SPACE SHE HAS FOUND AN AUDIANCE.

Because I’m pretty damn sure that if anyone had any kind of choice, they wouldn’t work with people who undermine them, degrade them, and bring their personal life into a professional discussion. But we do.

Because that is the only space we have.

Let’s stop pointing at the women who are the spectacle and start looking at why that’s the only space women have voices.

This post has been Crossposted from my home blog.

not foreseeable?

jacintha saldanha is dead.  believed to have committed suicide after a couple of australian DJs managed to get through to kate middleton, while she was ill in hospital, as part of a prank.

as can be expected, the DJ's are upset.  people around the world are upset and have been expressing their anger.  advertisers have pulled out of the station. and now the station is apparently starting to "fight back", and others are starting to defend them.

for example, jeff kennett, head of a depression counselling service had this to say:

"When they did this they had no intention to cause harm, it was a harmless prank,” he said.

and the CEO of the company which owns the radio station had this to say about the DJs:

... there was no way they could have foreseen the tragic outcome of their actions.

the latter is true, in that they could not have foreseen that someone would have committed suicide.  but there are certain things they could have foreseen. they could have foreseen, once they got through, that all the people in the chain of getting them through would have been seriously embarrassed and in some trouble at work.

while the hospital denies this has happened, and there is no evidence to show otherwise, it is quite reasonably foreseeable that staff would have to face some consequences.  it might not be disciplinary action, it may just be the knowledge that everyone in their workplace knows that they have let the side down by being involved in a major privacy breach.

it is foreseeable, when the targets of the prank are wealthy and powerful, are people who have a team of staff at their disposal, are people who have a huge fan following across the globe, that such people being upset at the breach of their privacy is going to lead to consequences for any staff that were involved in that breach.  they wouldn't need to say anything directly to the staff members involved - possibly the royals didn't even meet jacintha saldahna after the prank call.

but it is enough that their displeasure and unhappiness was expressed in every media outlet across the world.  to know that you were partly responsible for that displeasure would be a pretty horrible feeling.  that is entirely foreseeable.  it is harmful.  this is not a harmful prank.

any prank that involves embarrassing or scaring someone is not harmless.  a prank that involves embarrassing rich, powerful and extremely influential people is certainly not harmless.  it's harmless enough to the DJs sitting in australia, who were crowing about their achievement until this death, while they were safely half a world away.  but they would surely have known it was not harmless to the staff at the hospital who put the call through.

they knew this because the call was pre-recorded, and apparently the station tried to call the hospital 5 times.  why would they do that, unless they were fully aware that airing the call on the radio would have consequences for the hospital and its staff?  they knew.  this was a calculated decision.  at the point they decided to air the call, they also decided that the consequences for the hospital staff was entirely unimportant to them.

they could not have foreseen the suicide.  but they could have foreseen the shame and the pain.  and they didn't care.  the publicity of airing the call was more important.  if no-one had died, then those staff (there were apparently 2 staff involved in forwarding this particular call) would still have suffered harm.  it is impossible that they would have been unaffected.

as i mentioned above, the DJs are upset.  as i expect they would be, and i do sympathise with the fact that they have to live with the consequences of what has happened.  as with the paul henry incident, i think the responsibility for this whole incident doesn't rest solely with the 2 DJs.  in fact the major responsibility lies with the programmes producers and the management of the station.  these are the people who set the culture, who determine what is allowable and not allowable, who make the decisions of what will air and what won't.  the DJs are the public face of this incident because they were the ones on air.  but i doubt they are the major decision-makers, or at the very least, they did not make the crucial decisions on their own.

we're not seeing the names of the people who were responsible for the culture and the important decisions - or maybe i just haven't looked hard enough.  but these are the people who need to be held to account.  they have knowingly caused harm, even if they couldn't foresee that the harm would lead to such tragic results.

just one final point i want to make about all of this.  with the DJs having done an interview & the station owners basically on the offensive, the coverage is now focused on the suffering of the DJs.  and the suffering of jacintha saldanha is beginning to be sidelined.  the suffering of her family is beginning to be sidelined.  it's wrong for the station and the DJ to put their own suffering ahead of this family, in some kind of attempt at public exoneration.  again the DJs are being used by their management - their tears and hurt are being used in attempt to deflect some of the outrage and criticism.  it's unacceptable.

the honourable thing to do in this situation would be for the DJs to express their grief and to apologise for the consequences of their actions by press release, and then to step back and be silent.  it would be honourable for the station management and the show's producers to apologise and express their condolences, and then to step back.    they did what they did.  they take responsibility and face the consequences, but under no circumstances should they try to take centre stage here.

there will be no happy endings here.  at the most, we might hope that there will be some lessons learned, not only by the people at this radio station but also by staff at other media outlets.  i suspect that's wishful thinking on my part.  my sincere condolences to the family of jacintha saldanha.

That Sam Judd Article - A Dissection

Does it ever make you cringe when you see someone who is overweight gouging themselves on takeaways?

No, no it doesn't actually. I rarely take any notice of what people I don't know are eating - and if I do it's usually because it looks good and I wonder where they got it or how they made it. If they're someone I know, I'm probably more interested in them. Odd how I have better things to do with my time than hanging round judging random people on the street. (Look at me not focusing on the word 'gouging' because there's so much else to rant about.)

It is not just the health problems that irk me 

Oh, you're concerned. How caring of you.

many environmental problems stem from an unhealthy diet also. 

You know, I'll be expecting some pretty significant evidence for this, and a definition of that 'unhealthy diet'.

Just take a walk in the central city early on a Saturday morning and count how many fast food wrappers you see in the drains.

Oh! So it's about rubbish on the streets!  Well there's a detailed macro analysis of the environmental problems we face.

I believe there is an inextricable link between people who don't look after their own health and those who damage our environment.

That would be... governments and multi national corporations, right? No? Oh, you're talking about individuals? Mysterious fat individuals who drop rubbish, despite the fact you don't appear to have seen this actually happen, only surveyed the streets on a Saturday morning. See, you keep talking about fat people and you talk about there being excess packaging on food you perceive as unhealthy, but you fail to make any actual connection between the two, other than the fact that the two together make you cringe. I'd suggest the problem might be one of your perception. 

Single use convenience food packaging and sugary pre-mixed bourbon and cola drink containers are constantly proving to be the biggest source of rubbish on our streets and beaches. 

Bourbon and cola? Really? Not lime baccardi breezers or vodka fuse? I'm happy you can be this specific. Clearly bourbon's the problem - and if we all switched to other drinks the problem would be solved.

New Zealand has the 7th worst obesity rate in the world.

You do realise that obesity is a meaningless construct, right? Oh...

[...]

Can our terrible eating habits be blamed on urbanisation? 

Well, you might want to establish what our eating habits actually are first.

As more people flock to newly developed apartment dwellings in cities, they give up the opportunity to have a garden and teach their kids how to grow food. 

Yeah, where you live is entirely a choice and has nothing whatsoever to do with money, availability, transport, access or anything else.

But Statistics New Zealand figures say that, although the percentage is rapidly rising only around 20,000 of our 4,000,000-odd people lived in apartments in 2006.
Most kiwis want to have their own slice of outdoor space...
So it seems that most of us have the space to grow food, but we are too lazy to do it. It is easier to pile yourself into a car and burn fuel to visit a shop where unhealthy food (likely to be wrapped in single use plastic packaging) awaits our lazy bellies.

Here's the thing. Even when there genuinely is the space - and a lot of residences that aren't apartments don't have it -you may be working long hours. Your landlord may forbid you from modifying the garden. You may not have the startup cash. You may have the startup cash but not be able to take the risk that if you fail you won't have any food to eat. You may be disabled in ways that make this impossible. You may work long hours and have childcare issues and just be plain exhausted. You may have to move between rentals every year and there's never chance to get anything going.
But thanks for making people feel bad for doing what they need to survive, demeaning them and making broad assumptions about their resources. I hope that makes you feel really awesome.
And I still have no fucking idea what this has to do with fat people.

[...]
It is healthier, cheaper and better for the environment to eat fresh food that can be grown at home. 

Not... necessarily. Healthy depends on how well it's grown and what your dietry needs are. Cheaper depends on your resources, economies of scale and what it is you need to grow. And better for the environment really depends on the policies of those growing food on a wider scale - perhaps you should talk to them. Nevertheless...

When we are educating school students about using less waste, one of the best examples that we can use is growing it yourself.
And it really isn't that hard to start. If you don't have the space, or wouldn't know the difference between clay and topsoil- there are many community gardens out there, where people can usually learn essential gardening skills and share a space. You can check out this handy guide here.
Some school students are lucky enough to be getting gardening skills already through the Enviroschools network and other fantastic organisations like The Garden to Table Trust, which is working with Waterfront Auckland on an edible garden by the sea on the north wharf.

Aside from another assumption about difficulty levels, there's actually some good stuff in here.  If your aim was to encourage people to grow their own food, you could have provided these resources and some people may well have used them. But instead you've fuelled fat hate and made people feel like crap for their limited resources. I'm sure this has made people (particularly fat people) who would like to grow their own food more (incidentally I'm one of them) but don't find it easy really receptive to your message. Go you!

Do not waste your time seeing this film

This week I went to see a film, Cafe de Flore. It had had good reviews (and was, I noticed, the staff pick at the Deluxe). The photography and acting were very good indeed, but for almost two hours, I tried to work out what exactly was going on. When it finally became clear, I found it hard not to start yelling at the screen. I'm now going to "spoil" this piece of pretentious, sexist crap by explaining the plot as simply as I can, because it was the plot that was so revolting.

Two interwoven stories, separated in time and place. On screen, Montreal begins first and takes up more time throughout, with flashbacks, but it makes more sense to put Paris first here.


Paris, 1969. A young woman who works as a hairdresser gives birth to a boy with Down's, and her husband leaves her. She devotes her life to helping her child become the best he can be, insisting that he goes to a mainstream school. One day, when he is seven, a girl with Down's joins his class. The children instantly become firmly attached to each other and scream when they are separated. They spend time at each other's houses, but the mother feels displaced from being the centre of her son's life and becomes very distressed by his obsession with the girl. The girl's parents are distressed too, and decide to send her to a special school. The boy keeps asking for her. The mother ties him to a bed to stop him going out to find her. Eventually she takes him to find her, puts both children in the car, and kills herself and them by driving into a tree. 

Montreal, 2011. A man who is now a handsome, healthy, rich, internationally famous DJ married his dark-haired, equally music-loving young girlfriend twenty years ago, and they have two daughters. But he has met and fallen for a younger, hip, tattooed blonde and has moved in with her. He decides he wants to remarry. She is worried about his ex, saying it's too soon. The children visit regularly, but his older daughter becomes upset and in the film's best line, tells him "what Mum won't say - you're an asshole."

The ex-wife is indeed very distressed, sleepwalking and having nightmares about a little boy with Down's. She goes to see a medium and works out that she was his mother in a previous life. Back then she made a mistake thinking he was her soulmate and not setting him free to be with his real soulmate. This time around she has made the same mistake, thinking her husband was her soulmate when really the blonde is his soulmate. She realises she is wrong to stand in his way. He marries the blonde, with the daughters and his now-approving parents standing by. The ex-wife arrives, smiling bravely, and hugs everyone.

I hope you understand now why I'm telling you not to bother seeing this movie.