Media Personality

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The silent death; does it need a less invasive test?

Saturday 2nd May, 2009 in Health, Media Personality, sex by andieberry | No comments

The silent death is cervical cancer. I knew a little about cervical cancer, skipped appointments for the screening because its embarrassing and uncomfortable and occasionally when I did turn up got the ‘abnormal’ diagnosis. I had the abnormal diagnosis three times ,dutifully turned up at the hospital, had an electrode strapped to my thigh in order to power the electric cheese wire that sliced off the abnormal white spots in my cervix. Was I scared?  No- in fact I got quite blase about it- after all I’m young , healthy and I’ve had kids (some doctors I saw when I was younger, claimed that most ‘womens’ problems disappear after having kids!). Then came Jade Goody.

Has Jade Goody done for cervical cancer what Kylie Minogue did for breast cancer? The signs look good-  an average figure for more women going for smear tests is 40%,  so the short life of Goody was not in vain. What is never discussed in the media is one of the real reasons behind why women don’t go for smear tests. Women have that discussion- its embarrasing , sometimes it hurts, you worry about what the doctor or nurse thinks about your pubic hair, does your vagina look ‘normal’? Does it have a funny smell?

Ultimately its the invasision of privacy-  knickers off , lie on the bed and open your legs to ,sometimes, a complete stranger, and then have a cold instrument inserted in order to take a sample of cells. Ok prevention is better than a cure and early detection is crucial, but in these days of stem cell research , the mode of injecting medicine through the pores rather than injection and keyhole hysterectomies is there any possibility of a non invasive way of detecting cervical cancer?

Freddie Starr ate my hamster and other bullshit.

Saturday 14th March, 2009 in Media Personality, Parenting, Technology, Uncategorized, feminism, gender, sex by andieberry | No comments

Browsing the net tonight I found two articles that caught my eye , over on Feministing ,about a lesbian being chased off and effectively banned from x-box live and the other over on the F-word about female I.T workers quitting their jobs because of the industry’s sexism.

To be honest , at first, I thought the headline `Lesbian banned from X-box live!` was a headline straight out of  The Sun in the `Freddie Starr ate my hamster` mould. It was absolutely ridiculous and laughed until I checked  out the whole article. I started to think about the last x-box game I completed (Fable II ), its a role playing game with fighting,magic and relies on interpersonal responses with the game virtual characters in order to fully assess renown.

Did it matter if I was a male or female character? A main unlock achievement in the game is to get married and was it a problem if I chose a member of the same sex? No .So sexuality equality is creeping into some games these days ,so why does it matter if you express your sexuality or just simply experiment? Its the old chestnut `just think about the children!` panic , in other terms ‘I don’t want to explain why some people have different sexualities , it makes me uncomfortable’.

That comment pointed to me over to the furor over a disabled woman presenting kids TV. A women with one able arm is presenting toddler t.v . So what?  most of the rational thinking population may think,but no, during a Radio 2 talk show a listener rang in and complained that this woman would give his kids nightmares. Well Mr phone man ,my kids are 3 and 4 and they didn’t bat an eyelid or comment on it!

Back to the game…upon completing the game I was shown the credits.  How many female programmers were credited? Two ,that’s right two. Out of thirty five! WTF! Why is that I thought to myself? Maybe I’m being naive here but I thought we lived in 2009 , and that technology and jobs within the tech industry were  about merit and not about gender. I’m wrong according to the excellent article over on The F-word. Sexism is rife in the I.T industry , apparently us ‘girls’ should stick to low paying call center jobs and making the tea at gaming studios.

I have now made a conscious decision to learn programming , I’m kind of into finding out what my p.c can do and regular readers know that I’m an advocate of open source software, and I like messing around with Linux operating system.

I used to work in pubs , I know that most men are socialized in a sexist manner but I thought that on-line we as women could be what we wanted to be , be it androgynous, lesbian, bisexual or a spider plankton from Mars. Who cares as long as you find  liberty and kinship which under pins the whole ethic of the World Wide Web or even the supposed male dominated Hacker world :-

“Hackers should be judged by their hacking , not bogus criteria such as degrees,age,race or position”.(Levy,S.Hackers(1994)Penguin.New York.

Why I think Paula Yates is a Feminist Icon (Icons, Part One)

Sunday 25th January, 2009 in Icons, Media Personality, feminism by andieberry | 2 comments

Whilst trying to get down to some serious study about capitalism the other night Suzi and I veered off the topic and had a discussion about Paula Yates.  We’ ve often talked about feminist icons  and I put it to Suzi that in my eyes Paula Yates was, in fact a feminist icon.

Back in the eighties I used to watch The Tube, I remember seeing this funny, vibrant woman wearing prom dresses and sporting a tattoo. No woman presenter on T.V looked like or interviewed like her. The Tube itself was descibed as shambolic and an alternative Top of the Pops, it was here that Paula Yates could shine

Previous to this she was simply known as Bob Geldofs wife, a groupie who got lucky, no mention was made of her career as a rock journalist, did she just get the presenting job because of her husbands connections? Even if she did, she grabbed the opportunity with both hands and made it so that she was a vital part of the programme and was never ‘replaced’ with a younger model through the years.

Paula raised a family, was not eclipsed by her high profile husband and managed to stay afloat in a very tough industry – is this not a mark of a feminist?

Paula did all this by expressing her femininity and raw sexuality which, in turn, masked her intellect – are feminists not allowed to be sexual? Have you never flirted in order to get better service in shops or get served first in a crowded bar?

Paula wrote two books on childcare which reflected what a great mother she must have been, funny, caring and practical albeit with nannies, but the books reflect that she was ‘hands on’.

Then of course along came Micheal Hutchence starting with the infamous big breakfast interview and ending with the tragic early deaths of both. When Paula left Geldof for Hutchence was it Hutchence who was cast as the home wrecker? No, Paula was cast as the villain in the piece, and,  in the eyes of the media she was back to being a groupie who got lucky and left poor Sir Bob, was she guilty of acting in a male gendered way?

I think it must of taken guts to leave such a (by that time) ’sainted’ high profile husband and still live her life in public. I think she was unique, clever and a pioneer in reconstructing how a woman should act and I would definitely say that , to me, is what feminism is all about.