Anna Richardson and Revenge Porn

Tonight I watched Channel 4’s documentary, Revenge Porn in which Anna Richardson speaks to the victims and the perpetrators of revenge porn, and investigates the platforms that allows for people to upload explicit photos of others. Such websites are for the purpose of “seeking revenge”, being abusive and humiliating those who are depicted in the photos.

Revenge Porn in the context of this documentary was the act of someone using photos that they had been sent, in one case filmed without consent, and posting them online, on websites without the persons consent that are involved. An example used in the programme was Ex’s using old nudes that their previous partner had sent them giving it the term “revenge porn”.

Anna Richardson, who is well-known for her “entertaining” programme on the taboo subject of sex on Channel 4, like her previous series The Sex Education Show, where she offers candid information and advice on the subject. I thought it was somehow ironic that she has been the center of a subject that she has little experience of the topic, until she proceeds to in the documentary , take nude photos of herself enhance them so that her face is not recognisable, creating a fake profile with a different name and story to her own uploads them to a revenge porn website to ” understand what she is investigate”. I fully appreciate that it took, to a degree, guts, courage, bravery (and so on) to upload your naked body for a community of online people who you do not know, and comment on these picture in order to humiliate and abuse you, I acknowledge that. I would have found more condescending if she hadn’t of carried this out then I already found her, I still do not think this was necessary to create a succesful documentary about the experiences of Revenge Porn.

Firstly, she did not have to post those pictures so that she could experience what the people she interviewed was feeling to create a succesful documentary on the subject. Secondly she can not have experience the same emotions that those people were feeling in the same way, Anna Richardson had the power of choice and authority over the images that she chose to put up, she could not experience the loss of that authority or choice.

Authority is such a big theme in this programme, for me it has so many issues – authority in this programme to tell and document this topic has been given to a privileged white woman (although I would have been more angered if this documentary was voiced by a man) who can have no full understanding of what it is like to be in that position. Instead of having an in-depth documentation and researched programme about individuals sharing their own experience and investigation the industry that is created, we receive experiences that are mediated through the authoritative voice of a privileged woman who has no full understanding of what she is mediating, instead we have this mediation and her own manipulated story of what she is “investigating” and the focus is shifted from experiences of others and centered around Anna Richardson. I feel that in a way her creating the profile with the pictures manipulates the audience to empathise with her which I find sick (which is a production issue not necessarily down to Anna Richardson) when the audience should be empathizing with those who have not been paid to create the documentary and post picture of their own free will on a revenge porn website. I suppose it derives from part of this celebrity culture where the authority voice of the white privileged women means that it is acceptable to talk about and gives the topic authority where is the documentary had been produced with a faceless narrator or a faceless journalist it may not have had the same authority or publication.

For me, I feel I would have gained a lot more from having experiences told to me from people who had experienced the loss of their choice in comparison to a privileged woman who has been given a platform, been paid and chosen to take pictures and put them online, plus towards the end of the programme we understand that the pictures were then taken down mysteriously by the website for reasons unknown.

Again, I am not fully bashing Anna Richardson, as I do think that to some degree she has risen awareness of what can happen to people and some people may benefit from information from the programme.

As i was watching the programme, I was on social media looking at the hashtag RevengePorn and some of the reactions were absolutely disgusting and vile they do not even worth mentioning. I found others quite infuriating, a lot of the tweets I saw involved things like “It’s a female problem” or “educate the younger female generation”. This frankly, pissed me off. It is not or ever will be a female problem. END OF. I have tried to be gender neutral throughout this post because it involves everyone on every side. Females and Males can be the victim just as much as the perpetrator, in the case that they showed where a girl posted a video of her best friend who also was a girl, there a lots of different situations that means you can not make a generalised statement as a fact, according to the programme it did seem however, that a large majority of the shaming was carried out by men on images of women, doesn’t mean to say it doesn’t happen the other way round. Also, age, when did this become a factor in deciding an issue that is rooted in society carried down through generations? You could argue that an older generation may know less about technology, so are less likely to know where pictures may end up? It is not a younger generations problem – yes by all means educate them – but educate everyone so everyone is aware male and female, young and old.

Another reaction went along the lines of “if someone sends nudes to someone else, you should expect them to end up on the internet, therefore its their own fault” HELL NO! If you DID NOT get permission or consent to do anything other than look at them on your phone or app or whatever you are receiving them on, then you are a criminal and can be persecuted by law. Just because someone sends a nude does not mean it is acceptable for it to be posted for an entire community online to see. In my eyes it’s like saying that if a woman is wearing a revealing top or skirt or looks at you, she wanted it. NO its called RAPE. Same thing, it is ABUSE to use someone else image especially for the sole person of humiliations.

What frustrates me more is the fact that the platforms that the images are being posted on and allows for people to make comments that are sexual, threatening and violent are not illegal and therefore are allowed to exist. it is not “just how things are” or “how the internet works” it is wrong plain and simple and if you feel like you would like to learn more about how to stop revenge porn then there is a campaign and a website that you can find out more from. >>> End Revenge Porn

B x

Women in the Workplace.

I study sociology at university and one of my assignments is to make a research plan, which we get to choose, we can look at anything we want as long as it is relevant. Which is hard because sociology is such a big field. Anyway, I have chosen to look at “Do women hold fewer positions of power in the workplace than men?”. Firstly because I found this article that annoyed me, secondly I was kinda interested if women do actually hold fewer positions of power than men and if it was so then why? And thirdly because how uneducated my generation are on the understanding of Feminism.

Lets look at the third reason first – Backwards thinking here bear with me! Sooooooo, there was this status on Facebook, which as we know produces some total crap sometimes, but it was about feminism. The post went along the lines of “I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes but where has this riding tide of feminism come from?” Stop! Lets just pause – NO just NO! Well lets see it isn’t all of a sudden! The first wave of feminism was a hell of a long time ago and there has been two more since then and women still struggle for the equal rights of women – so no its not all of a sudden! There is just more awareness of it, which may I add is a bloody good thing considering how uneduatced people seem to be! It then goes on to say “Just because Emma Watson has suddenly decided she hates men or whatever we don’t all have to agree, I think equality should be advertised, but maybe I’m in the small minority.” This is when I was on the floor half way between crying and laughing! So yes people are entitled to their opinions but at the same time if you are publicly airing your views at least do a little research! Not claiming to be an expert in this area at all but I’m pretty sure that Emma Watson was not on about man hating? I am pretty sure her point was that there should be equality between men and women? So in between quiet sobs and reading through the 130 post debate, it started me thinking about how women themselves do not understand the point in modern feminism, so how we will ever bring about a more equal society, in the case of gender or otherwise, if the group of people who are being repressed don’t understand their situation? I think by the end of the debate the whole point was lost and the debate had moved on to god knows what but whatever they were arguing about it definitely was not to do with Feminism!

The article was from the BBC in 2011 – and while it did trigger my thought process and my Research Proposal, it also made me question the society that we live in, in a kind of *face palm* sort of way! Here’s the link if you want to look at it – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/12560121 but basically its about women do not hold a representative quantity of power seats in companies so they’ve made a report to say that by 2015 25% of board members of companies have to women. So my first though was oh cool…but when you think about it so wrong on like so many levels but fundamentally for me there are two things wrong – firstly that WE HAVE TO MAKE A REPORT TO ALLOW WOMEN TO HAVE THE SAME JOBS AS MEN! And secondly what if men are actually doing a better job than women! What if an individual who happens to be male is better doing it than a women? Which is a possibility – probably not in every case seeing as “Currently 18 FTSE 100 companies have no female directors at all and nearly half of all FTSE 250 companies do not have a woman in the boardroom” which is so so so wrong because I doubt that in all of these companies all the men are better at their jobs than women! It confuses the hell out me that we can live in a society that values one group of people than another….whether that gender or age or race! The facts annoyed me rather than the article itself probably. And then it led me to think well now the women put in to the power positions will know that they have only been given the right to these jobs because a report was created to say that a woman had to fill the boardroom or director position – even though most of them will have probably earned it – the only reason why they are getting it is a report! So I’m divided I want to feel empowered that there is something being down to ensure the progression of women in positions of power in the workplace but also I feel patronized because the only reason why I’m going to be able to achieve that position in the future is because a report said that the company I work for has to fill a quote. I suppose change has to start somewhere right?

As a consequence to the article, it made me think why there are so few women in these positions. I suppose some are mothers which rock on because that’s equally as hard as becoming a women in power! Some probably leave their career half way to do this and than some don’t come back into the job market which again rock on! But that is the only legitimate reason I could think of why there are fewer women then men that are represented in these positions of power. The only thing I could think of was that its harder for women to climb the corporate ladder, which seems so unbelievable because statistically women do better in education so it isn’t that women are qualified to be in the positions, so why then is it harder in the workplace, is it because there is a stigma attached to women in powerful positions? Is it because of the patriarchal  organization of companies that means for women these positions are impregnable? It really frustrates me because I’m going to university to get a degree to try and better myself and I suppose one day fill roles where i am a women in power but will i ever be able to achieve this because of the society i live in? so whats the point of my 25 years spent in education and my 50 grand debt at the end of my degree?

So the research proposal should be great…when I actually tackle it! It’s easy to write 1000 words on a blog when your rambling and the unlikelihood of it being read in comparison the terrifying marker at uni!

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