UK Porn Laws

Before considering the latest governmental changes to porn laws, it is important to be aware of how the porn industry was already sexist, racist and degrading.  Yet new legislation in the UK makes these laws blatantly misogynistic, further devaluing women and their role within society.

Due to an amendment made this month on the 2003 Communications Act, a new list of sexual acts have been banned from being produced in British-made adult films.  On-demand adult films are now required to meet the same standards of production as those of films available on DVD in sex shops.  The list of banned acts consists of spanking, caning, female ejaculation and face-sitting, amongst others, due to being deemed life-threatening.  However, many of the acts that have been contributed to the list are those associated with female pleasure and sexual satisfaction. 

Christmas, Greed and Consumerism

Firstly, it is not that I dislike Christmas.  I dislike the exaggerated build up to a day which rarely lives up to expectations.

Secondly, Christmas is no longer centred on a traditional Christian celebration.  It is focused on consumerism.

Every year, without most of us realising, Christmas starts earlier and earlier.  This year it started in October.  Shopping centres and adverts entice us to become festive once again and join in with the Christmas spirit.  But what is Christmas spirit?

Political Apathy

Within society, there is a substantial number of “apathetics” – those people with no interest in politics, and they make up around 30% of the population.  This figure is reflected in low election turnouts, both local and national, and the low percentage of political party membership.

But, is being indifferent to political changes and participation in fact another, less recognised, form of participating in politics?

Vagaries of Perception

Collective Conscience?

Is everything just an illusion, a grand social construct?  Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect that has been trying desperately to justify an existence that is supposedly without meaning or purpose? 

Social constructionism is the idea that through human choices, rather than laws related to human judgement, the social mechanisms, phenomenon, or categories are created and developed by the individuals in society.  Social constructs are the by-products of these choices, and this explains why nothing in society is absolute or standardised.  Every individual has their own social reality because of these constructs.  This involves examining social factors and beliefs, and how they become institutionalised, known and engrained in the human psyche.  The social construction of reality is an ongoing, dynamic and fluid process, open to change (yet denied by society), that is reproduced by people acting on their interpretations and knowledge of the society they live in.

Don’t Study Sociology If You Want To Be Happy

Freedom?

Sociology is about confronting and challenging the morality of our fragmented society because, when we pry beneath the surface, we quickly realise that everything we have been socialised into is an ideal, and that very few people can live up to the unrealistic standards of society's institutions.

Studying Sociology will lead to the eventual realisation that the world is penetrable by insight.  It is not necessarily a happy experience, nor a negative one.  Instead, it is supremely insightful.  Meaning becomes an abstract social thing, and not a fuel for your life as we have been led to believe up until this point.  Whatever social problem comes up, you can imagine the great causal chains which supports, but also holds back, groups of people.  An analytical mind can be a burden, but also a liberator.  Once you can see the ball and chains that restrict people, you can begin to free yourself from them.  If you can at first liberate yourself through knowledge of the ephemeral beauty of life, you can eventually emancipate others by subtly altering the structure of their individual lives to include things that will release them from this socially constructed trap.  Now that you know better, you have to do better.

No More Page 3

The first responsibility that needs to be accounted for is to acknowledge that there is power in these images in a national newspaper.  Advertising, magazine covers and editorial spreads all have power.  There are people who have dedicated their lives to studying, researching and understanding how people will have an emotional, intellectual and moral response to an image, sound, voice or text.  This is what people have researched, and this is why they are paid such large salaries.  But to pretend that all this knowledge and the outcomes of research means nothing morally, that these people are servants of the people and seek to reflect back what the people want, is ridiculous. 

Economic Disaster, Crime and Society

Who is responsible?

Society has been divided by capitalism, and as a result, there is a conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.  Therefore, social inequality and economic disasters, stemming from capitalism, are the causes of crime, thus supporting the claim that the law operates to serve the interests of the ruling class. 

Capitalism is an exploitative system whereby the bourgeoisie exploit the proletariat because it is a system that espouses the extraordinary belief that the nastiest men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.  Crime is the result of poverty which is generated by the capitalist system.  People steal because

World Change

Are we the revolution? 

Should we not all want to do something that is outside of our comfort zone that really makes a substantial difference on a wider scale, in a country outside of our immediate locality?  It would give us the opportunity to communicate with people from different cultures, gain their trust and a deeper insight into how their lives and communities are supported and affected by social and economic policies by local governments.  Throwing money at a problem is not the solution.  It is about working with local people to discuss the problems that affect them directly and find sustainable routes which will help them improve life chances, and this is far more effective than distanced monetary aid. 

Male Privilege

“Male privilege” is a term that is often thrown around with little thought to what it is referring or what it really means.  The term refers to white middle-upper class heterosexual males who have traditionally (before equal rights movements began) ruled and owned society, and, to an extent, this is still true today.  Life for men who match this cisgender identity tend to find that their life is easier compared to the working classes, ethnic minorities or those with a transsexual identity.  Yet when men within the boundaries for male privilege are confronted with the terminology, they become defensive, confrontational and do everything in their power to prove that they do not have an easier life than anyone else.  They will play around with the word “privilege”, haul out the dictionaries and question the meaning of the word and whether it can truly be applied to this narrow view of the male gender.  They seem to hold the misconception that discussing prejudice which has stemmed from their group is in fact another form of prejudice and it cannot be justified. 

It's A Fracking Disaster

Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as “fracking”, is the process of drilling far into the earth, and injecting a liquid mixture of water and toxic chemicals at a high pressure into subterranean rocks, boreholes, and so forth, so as to force open existing fissures and extract shale gas.  Over the last century the exploitation of fossil fuels has developed from tunnel mining for coal and drilling shallow oil wells to tearing apart whole mountains and drilling in a mile or more deep of ocean.  These have inevitably led to many environmental disasters.  Yet fracking has been hailed as the “revolution of the energy industry”, and investors and corporations do not want the general public to be aware of the destruction and negative impact that this new “solution” has on the environment. 

Fracking is simply a symptom of a much wider problem.  As easier to extract energy resources are exhausted and drained by the unsustainable energy consumption and consumerism of our present system, we are resorting to ever more extreme methods of energy extraction.  But at what cost?

The Infamous “Friendzone”

The friendzone does not exist

The “friendzone” is a situation in which a friendship exists between two people, one of whom has an unreciprocated sexual interest in the other.  It is where men go – or where men perceive themselves to end up – when a woman of their desires fails to reward their friendship with sexual favours.

From a not-entirely feminist perspective (more so common sense), the friendzone has come to exist as a way of diminishing a woman’s right to say “no” to a person’s sexual advances.  Frankly, it is a sexist myth.  It is not real.

Silencing Women

The double-standards for men and women is an issue often discussed, but rarely so in the realm of semantics.  One double-standard particularly hits home time and again: when a man is opinionated, talks too much and demands the respect he deserves, he is seen as “confident”, whilst a woman who behaves in the same manner is deemed to be “attention-seeking”.  It’s a typecast entrenched deep in the human mind.  It’s a social tool for getting women to shut up and keep quiet, but it is also evidence that what she was saying has made an impact, that she has more power than she realises.  It’s a slur that should be a source of pride. 

Yet we are told that we have no power, we can make no impact on the world.  And this is done so through people’s choice of words, intentional or not.  But it works, and this should not be the case.

We Need a Revolution

The fact that so few people actually have their own opinions about world issues (or at the very least do not openly share them), but instead conform to media inspired beliefs is something rather concerning.  We need a revolution, yet this won’t happen unless everyone realises the ideological control of the media and societal institutions in biasing our perception of the world.  So many people do not care nor have opinions about things that really matter, such as the state of humanity, the way we so easily obey the people at the top of hierarchy because we believe they’re better than us, or the way the environment is used for capitalistic gain. 

Capitalism Kills

Firstly, capitalism is all about making money, and does so at the expense of individuals, and their labour and human rights.  Worldwide, employees are injured and dying on oilrigs, in coal mines and large factories because their regulation-hating employers want to maximise profits.  The capitalist system emphasises the maximisation of profits and the accumulation of wealth with little regard for the minimal wages paid to those who produce the surplus value applied to their products.  The state is focused on company objectives and numerical targets, rather than the well-being, health and safety of their workers. The creation of laws serves to operate the ideology of the bourgeoisie as a consequence of exploitation.  The majority of the population are exploited by the government and owners of big businesses, hence, exploitation from capitalism leads to the creation of laws which appear to benefit the proletariat, but truly benefit the ruling class by increasing profit margins, regardless of the potential for fatal outcomes.

The Propagandised Nature of the Media

The media is the most powerful organisation which has a big impact on the social construction of news topics. The importance of the news media in framing the public understanding of social problems is widely recognised and has been greatly documented.  It has been suggested that there is a broad correspondence between the images of news stories and articulated in the news media and the interpretation of this.  As a result, the media presentation of information reinforces the social construction of fear and anxiety within the general population.

However, this is not a positive thing for society. 

The Importance of Foreign Languages

http://www.savagechickens.com/ 

In schools you will find that the Head of Modern Foreign Languages is always blathering on about the importance of studying languages.  And quite frankly, they are right to do so.

However, for many in compulsory education, the opportunity to study either French, German or Spanish is challenging and often daunting.  I must agree.  Having studied French from Year 7 to AS Level, and German from Year 8 to A2, I can say with absolute certainty that learning a foreign language certainly presents its difficulties.  It is not helped by the fact that many students have a negative view of the department as a whole and deem language learning unnecessary and a deeply dissatisfactory experience. 

Environmental Protection

Without a doubt, pollution is one of the biggest threats to our ecosystem today.  Environmental pollution releases unwanted pollutants into the two most important aspects of our Earth: air and water.  This problem is primarily caused by people and our engineering.  Whether we like it or not, pollution is an issue, and ignoring it (as it has been by many thus far) shall not make it disappear.

War is Not The Solution

The crisis in Russia and Ukraine, and the war between Israel and Palestine are arguably the biggest conflicts in the world today.  However, the killing of rebels, those deemed troublesome, and the innocent civilians caught up in these battles is intolerable.

When will nations learn that killing people is not the solution to their problems?

Social Exploitation

Equal Society?

We live in a Western-modern paradigm that places great importance on a form of individuality that exploits fellow humans and nature for its own gain.  The current culture of the UK and USA encourages exploitation for personal gain, mistrust, spying on each other and every type of parasitic behaviour imaginable. 

The cause?  Money.

There will always be people who will simply choose to exploit others or allow evil to fester out of simple indifference.  It's not inherently evil.  It is people coveting money over the betterment of their fellow man that is wrong, but no matter what system we seek to set up, there will always be greed and those looking to get one over on others.  However, one system breeds such behaviours more than any other.

Rape Culture

Rape culture can be defined as, ‘a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women.  It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent.  In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself.  A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm’. 

Rape culture can be seen in many, if not all, areas of social life, including the media, education, the workplace, and the law, as well as amongst peers, colleagues, family members and people in positions of authority.  Rather than seeing the culture of rape as a problem that can be changed, people within rape culture continue to view the persistent existence of rape as the way things are and as something that cannot be altered.  Therefore, by continuing to allow society to portray sexual violence, harassment, abuse and rape as acceptable, we, as logical and intellectual individuals, are casting a vote for the type of society we wish to live in.  Unfortunately, this leads to the perpetuation of rape culture and rape myths / misconceptions.

China's Oppression of Tibet

Two years ago, China elected a new leader.  With 8 years remaining on their contract, it will be interesting to see how life in Tibet may or may not change for the better.

Since 1951, Tibet has been under the control of the Communist Party of China.  Mao Zedong (elected leader of the Communist Party 1949) sought to ‘liberate’ Tibet from the rule of the Dalai Lama and bring the country into the People’s Republic of China.  Within a matter of weeks, Tibet’s very small army had been defeated.  Beijing then implemented the Seventeen Point Plan (which Tibetan officials were forced to sign, or faced death.  They later renounced). 

The Radical Notion That Women and Ethnic Minorities are People

Anybody would think that with the profound influence of feminism and equal rights campaigns, women and ethnic minorities would be on an equal par with white middle class men.  It is true that the rights of these groups in Western societies have evolved thanks to the rise of various movements, but there is still a long way to go until racist-patriarchal values are overthrown and equality for all is achieved, not just in contemporary societies.

Unfortunately, it is still a commonly held view that women and ethnic minorities are inferior to men and white ethnic groups, particularly those from the upper-middle classes.  It is claimed by some communities that ethnic groups and women should not have rights until they can ‘prove’ that they are deserving.

But when did white middle class men prove that they were deserving of their rights and supremacist privilege?

Colour-blindness and Racist Ideology

Recently there was an interesting news item which discussed the high proportion of young Muslim men in prison. It was noted that the degree of overt institutional racism within the Met Police had reduced and other factors were to blame. This sparked my writing on this topic, as I believe that our definition and understanding of institutional racism within society has shifted and colour-blindness now appears to be a prevailing ideological perspective.

Colour-blindness, in sociological terms, is defined as ‘the disregard of racial characteristics; making no classifications, categorisations, or distinctions upon race’. This is no new phenomenon, but the existence of such attitudes has become more prominent in our society today as political correctness has extended its control over our freedom of speech. Advocates of colour-blind practices believe that treating people with no acknowledgement of race would lead to a more equal and tolerant society, whereby racial privilege would no longer exert the power it once did. However, those in opposition to such practices believe that racism and white privilege still remain defining features of many Western societies.