Gender Division in Big W catalogues

Gender/sex divisions are really rampant in society. I mean, while sex divisions may occur for biologically reasons, gender reasons have no cause, I think. 

Below is a page from a Big W catalogue:

There is an immediate division. The girl is outfitted in pink (oh, yes, the only colour that little girls can wear, apparently. All things girls are all things pink!), and the two sets of pink (and kinda purple, but still in the same colour-area) on the same 'row' obviously are targeted - or rather - made for girls. Whilst the little boy gets the dark-blue colours (in the same way that all things girls are pink, people seem to think that all boys only like blue), and again, two sets of clothing on the same row directly correspond to a boy wearing it.
Other than the clothes, something else strikes me. Their poses. The girl has her knees bent in - a sign of cuteness, shyness, and her body is bent away from the camera. The boy, on the other hand has a firm pose, staring more-confidently forward. Again, what does this say about what girls and boys need to conform to. Girl = pink = 'weaker', boy = blue = 'stronger'.

Next up, from the same catalogue;

The boys are wearing darker colours - blue again, and it's close cousin green. The two girls are wearing pink (darker, but still pink-y) and innocent, innocent white.

By boy's faces are facing directly forward. Both of the girls' faces are facing the camera on an angle. Between the two youngest, the contrast in their pose is strong. The boy stands legs appear, arms by his side and looking forward. His head is also tilt up, a sign of confidence, pride, maybe superiority. The girl on the other hand has one hand tucked away, other hand shyly in the hair. Her face is facing partly away and looking down - She looks at the camera through her lashes. In short, compared to the other boy, her pose is somewhat playful, but meek, and, with her head titled slightly downwards, subservient. Any remnant of her stronger -legs apart-ness are ruined by the 'conveniently' placed words/price (in more ways than one)

You can't entirely blame Big W for doing this. Mainstream society does seem to see in this divisionalistic way. But you can blame them for continuing to promote it, especially on things that don't need a gender/sex division.

Gaming Characters: Female vs Male

Miniclip may not contain memory-massive games, but that doesn't mean it escapes from the 'ravages' of sexism. 
Miniclip has a game category 'Games For Girls' -yet no 'Games for Boys' equivalent. Are those games really games targeted ONLY towards girls? No, but they are obviously being suggested as games that girls should play.
It's as though every other section is dedicated to boys, and assumed that only/mainly boys play games. (audience percentage is irrelevant)
It is undoubtedly true that girls play games outside the Games for Girls category, and that boys play the games inside the Games for Girls category.

Hmm, a games for girls section...everything to do with girls just gotta be pink, totally!
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In the Miniclip game, Clone Wars Adventures, there is less customisation for the female avatar as compared to the male avatar - and yet the media extols the fact that it's girls who constant worry about their appearance and need a super wide range of choice?

The gender 'male' has 3 choices of species: human, Twi'lek and clone, whereas the gender 'female' has only two choices: human and Twi'lek.

At first off, the two genders look rather similar -as humans. And then you get to the Twi'lek. Yes, they both have 'Right Lekku', but seriously, 'Slender Lekku'?? And of course, the male-only clone class.

Now going back to the front page. On the front, you can see four characters: 2 male, one female, and one hard-to-identify. Already, gender imbalance. Furthermore, both male characters are larger than the female character. And whilst both male characters are full clothed, the female character is actually showing more skin than just here face! That is, her upper arms, fingers and random cleavage (I admit it is hard to see, but it's there)

Clone Wars Adventures wasn't the perfect example - gender imbalance is a lot more rife in big-name gaming, if wundergeek at Go Make Me a Sandwich is anyone to go by (and she is someone to go by)

(From I Love Charts - click on the picture to go to the original) Sums it all up in an easy to understand chart:

Those things on girls' chests, ya know?

 I admit that I'm one of the many, many people who are dazzled by the manga/anime drawing style. But obviously I'm not dazzled enough to not notice the proliferation of young-female-prepubescent characters sporting generally small, but obvious breasts and unnaturally wide hips, and often the artists appear to feel the urge to do a panty shot along the way!

Image from here

And often, older teenage/young adult counterparts also miss out from a heavy dose of realism, such as here, and here (mature warning!)

All said before, but I can't help to say again. On that note, read on below...

Excerpt from 'Jailing girls for men's crimes'

...
But one can’t just blame the Internet for the increasing numbers of girls sold for sex in the U.S.; it’s a deeper societal issue. Observers have noted the increasing sexualization of young girls in our culture, which helps nor­malize men’s demands for younger and younger sexual partners and teaches girls that to be acceptable they have to be sexual. Lloyd argues that “corporate­-sponsored pimping” plays a role in sex trafficking of girls by glamorizing prostitution. For exam­ple, Reebok awarded a multi-million-dollar five­-year contract for two shoe lines to rapper 50 Cent, whose album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” (with the hit single “P.I.M.P.”) went platinum. Rapper Snoop Dogg, who showed up at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards with two women on dog leashes and who was described on the December 2006 cover of Rolling Stone as “America’s Most Lovable Pimp,” has received endorsement deals from Orbit gum and Chrysler. The mostly white leaders these corporations thus profit from these race-stereotyped images of black men, and care little about the effects these images may have on communities.

Corporations also act the pimp by pervasively selling young girls’ sexualized bodies, such as Miley Cyrus’ pole dancing performance on the Teen Choice Awards. Then of course, there are the highly sexualized Bratz dolls marketed to girls.

The American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls recently published a report de­scribing how the “proliferation of sex­ualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising and media is harming girls’ self-­image and healthy development.” Psycholo­gists have further identified a process of self­-objectification, in which girls treat their own bodies only as objects of oth­ers’ desires (see “Out of Body Image” in Ms., Spring 2008). This process doesn’t just negatively affect the sexual and physical health of developing girls, but can affect their mental health, cog­nitive functioning and even motor skills.
...

(Reading this kind of stuff made me realise I actually wasn't hallucinating)

A New Year Resolution: To raise awareness?

Girl = Unsafe = rape culture?

Recently, my two friends and I were walking to the train station. Something then occurred -- as such, my first friend said (jokingly?) that they were escorting me. I replied half-jokingly along the lines of 'surely I can walk by myself in the middle the middle of the day?' [and just to make it clear, we were walking down one of the busiest streets of Melbourne at around noon]

At this point, my second friends replied that, no, I couldn't walk the streets alone, that it was too dangerous. I reaffirmed that I could walk the streets by myself, especially in broad daylight (and in my mind, in the presence of many possible witnesses.) This same friend replied negative. I couldn't, because I was a girl.

Inside, I fumed. I protested lightly, but the station was ahead of me so I waved them goodbye.

To this friend, it seemed as though the fact of being a girl constituted all reason. Maybe if we talked more, deeper reasoning would have been revealed. Maybe if my friend had told me it was dangerous for me because I was small, with a lack of substantial muscle mass, I would have been more satisfied. Of course, that didn’t happen so there is not much point speculating.

So how does being a girl (i.e., having the configuration of XX) make it dangerous to walk the streets alone?

Well, at night, it's dangerous for anyone to walk alone, female or otherwise. Because at night, apparently, drunkards and malicious-intent’ed people lurk the streets. You don't have to be female to have your face caved in by one or more of those people Of course, everyone knows that if you're female and walking the streets alone at night, you're much more likely to be raped by one (or more) of the afore mentioned characters. Maybe this was what my friend was thinking of?

Which brings me to my main point and question. Why and what is [with] this rape-culture that exists?
For one, I don't think the increasingly sexualised image of girls and women in mainstream media helping much. It is like as though these girls and women are just asking to get raped --which defeats the purpose and meaning of 'rape':

rape is a sexual assault, usually involving sexual intercourse, by one person against another person without that person's consent.

Wikipedia

(my emphasis) And then again, some people actually believe that those 'raped' really did consent to it, and that it shouldn't be called rape after all.

The media may pay some 'lip-service' against rape, but obviously no one listens. It seems as though every year, at least one group of male footy players are accused of group-rape. At this point in time, please don't say "but men get raped too!" Yes, yes they do. And it is an issue that also needs to be dealt with. In this post however, I'm specifically writing about the in-safety of being a girl.

The Australian crime: Facts & figures 2009 estimates that only 20 per cent of sexual assaults (male and female) are actually reported to the police. So think, if 19,733 sexual assaults were recorded in 2008 (that's 92 people per 100,000 per year -- unacceptable, indeed!) how many people were assaulted without reporting it? That comes up to about 98 thousand assaults!
On the topic of the above file, 'only' 7 per cent of sexual assaults in 2008 occurred on the street or footpath, compared to the overwhelming percentage of 65 per cent occurring in a private dwelling. So that means that it's actually more dangerous for me to be at home? Or is it that these people are dragged off the streets into a private dwelling? Hmm.

Related to 'but men get raped too!':

2005, the ABS conducted the Personal Safety Survey that focused on men’s and women’s experiences of physical and sexual assault. Adults experiencing assault or sexual assault in previous 12 months and since age of 15 years (%):

Seventeen percent of women and five percent of men had reported experiencing a sexual assault since the age of 15 years.

So, according to this survey, women are 3.4 times more like to be sexually assaulted. But I must say, I am surprised that it's 'only' 3.4 times more.

Not only is it that the numbers of people assaulted but just as disturbing is that;

Reported sexual assaults have increased by 51 percent since 1995, at an average of four percent each year.

This is what leads me to wonder if there is some kind of ingrained, somewhat encouraged, culture of rape in society? That the media says it's okay? (Something to visit: The Age: How Fraser-kirk went from victim to villain) Are people becoming increasingly objectified? Is this the downfall of feminism? Of equality? Of human rights????!!!!

Girl = Dress

Surf Deviantart's Anime & Manga images, and what do you get? A disproportionate amount of girls are in dress -and where wielding a weapon does not automatically mean practical clothing. Mayhap my displeasure is erroneously placed - a lot of girls do like wearing dresses, after all. And I guess wearing a really short dress wouldn't hamper your movements as long as you don't care about panty shots and the like.

Something that strongly brought this to my attention was the proliferation of Black Rock Shooter fanart. Though, at least the characters aren't wearing scanty armour that would offer no protection at the weakest spots. Just scanty clothing.

[Above image from here]

What can I say? They're both wearing some armour. It's just that that it doesn't cover their heart, ya know?

[Above image found here]

This character might not be a girl as such. Maybe an extremely young adult? But you see, it is so dangerous that the guy finds it necessary to wear copious amount of armour, and yet this girl has barely anything on AND unsuitable footwear???

Not everyone does that to warrior girls though. There are works of girls/women in practical clothing. It's just really really rare...that's all.

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