How far we have come...

[DanaC]

Because we live in the world and are surrounded by our cultures, the details and extent of social change can slip past unheeded. We look back on the world of our youth and we see that world has changed - but it is not always clear just how much and in what ways. We look at those times through the lens of our own age.

I know, looking back, and particularly through the ready availability of television from that era, that the world I grew up in - 70s and 80s Britain - was a good deal more sexist than the world I currently live in. Some of that is obvious - employment legislation to prevent overtly prejudiced hiring and firing practices - a much greater emphasis on women's own autonomy and a much greater understanding of women's rights as akin to men's.

Gendered expectations have changed - when I was a child, I had many friends whose homelives adhered to and underlined strict gender roles: girls helping with house work, washing up and cooking, whilst their brothers were not expected to do the same but were expected to help dad fix the car; and the tail-end of an education system that expected girls to take Domestic Science / Home Economics and Needlework and boys to take Woodwork/Metalwork and Technical Drawing.

On TV and in the media - women were routinely objectified in ways that, whilst there is now more overt sexualisation and nudity, was actually far more pervasive. Because along with the sexual objectification came a raft of assumptions of women as natural homemakers and unnatural workers. Women on television, even well trained actresses, often had to spend great chunks of their careers playing 'dumb' frivolity to lighten the mood and give the Dads something to leer at. Whole comedy sketches founded on how hysterically funny it for a man to drop a pencil down a woman's top and have to fish it out again from her heaving bosoms - whilst she either stays mute with a look of erotic surprise, or squeals and wriggles and flaps her hands.

Women (particularly if they were young and attractive - women could play powerful characters, as long as they were older) were usually expected to be intellectually unchallenging on television and those that displayed any tendency to outthink the men were undercut with expectations of femininity and patronising attitudes.


I was aware of some of this stuff growing up. But a lot of it passed me by at the time. But it clearly had an impact even if I wasn't quite sure what it was. As a youngster, I loved action adventure and sci-fi (still do). I read voraciously and watched a lot of tv. And I used to day dream - I'd spin fantasies in my head, fuelled by what I'd read and watched, with myself at the centre of the story. I imagined it as film, I saw it play out as if on the screen - but here's the thing: when I tried to visualise myself in heroic stance, I found it very difficult to do - I morphed into a male figure at such times - if I tried to visualise myself as female in heroic pose the image shattered - because I had absolutely no visual reference for women with heroic physicality. If I pictured myself as female my physicality became less heroic. The poses struck by female characters on tv, even when intended to convey strength, actually conveyed overt female sexuality and their movements were undercut by the need to remain resolutely feminine. Think of Wonder Woman, Supergirl, or any female character fighting on a 70's show.

The world has changed so much. I watch something like Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, or Person of Interest and see women inhabiting heroic and anti-heroic personas - with the physicality to match.

We understand now how psycholgically impactful it was for many black people growing up not to see any positive depictions of non-white characters on tv and in the wider media - that to be surrounded by a culture that never really shows people that look like them. I think, without really understanding, that the lack of a female presence in large swathes of our cultural product (detective and action shows, along with much serious drama, were almost all primarily masculine, with one or two female characters in support, relationship, or victim roles) and the distorted depictions of women as comedy props in many comedy shows (very few actual female comics at that time - this was another area that was almost entirely male), had an impact on me and other girls growing up in the 70s and 80s.


This has been a bit of a ramble. But what provoked it was watching this interview, with Helen Mirren, from 1975. The interviewer is Michael Parkinson - very much the top chat show host of his day. The whole interview isn't sexist - but yes, he genuinely asked if she thought her breasts might get in the way of being taken seriously as an actress.

And that question about posing in Playboy was asked of pretty much every good looking actress of the day - the two standard questions to ask of actresses: why did you pose nude in Playboy? and Why did you not pose nude in Playboy? Two of the best actors of the time - Helen Mirren and Diana Rigg - both asked why they didn't want to pose nude for a men's magazine.







The other programme that really brought the change home to me was the three part documentary It was alright in the 1970s. The episode that concentrated mostly on sexism was fascinating to me.

It showed a clip from a show I used to watch every week, The Professionals. I loved that show! In the clip we see Bodie and Doyle (the two leads) crouched behind a car in a stand off with a man who has taken a woman hostage ... She is at this point squealing - which we are told by Doyle (iirc) may be due to the man they're chasing having dropped a grenade down her bra.

They shoot the guy I think, and one of the heroes runs over to the still squealing woman, rips open her top, and we see in great and slow detail his hands moving across her body and breasts (still in bra - primetime tv, no nipples allowed), retrieves the grenade, throws it away and then lies on top of her to protect her from the blast.

Watching it today it is soooo fucking outrageously done. The dialogue surrounding this action is so revoltingly sexist, including banter at the end about the hero half undressing the woman and lying on top of her.

In another clip, from a 'will they won't they', romantic sitcom, the slightly inept but lovable male lead, frustrated at being rebuffed by the female lead, stalks her as she shops in the market, talking to himself and getting more irate. The big laugh, punchline payoff for the scene is that, he gets so frustrated by the situation that he says in a loud voice, forgetting that he is surrounded by other shoppers "Urrrgh - I just want to rape her!" - cue slightly shocked looks from mothers putting their hands over children's sensitive ears, some ribald chuckling from male stall holders and a slightly disturbing amused leer from an older woman.

The whole documentary is fascinating - it looks both at the sexist portrayal of women in the media, and also at the media's treatment of 70s feminists. Across the three eps, they look at sexism, racism, homphobia and the wider society in which the media was operating.

I can't find clips or eps that would play outside the UK, but well worth checking it out if you can find it online. Not sure how much it croses over with the US experience - but it's a fun watch.