Damsel Magazine 2010 by UWA Student Guild

THE DAMSEL

2010

Editorial The idea of the ‘feminine’ has connotations of fragility and delicacy. The title of this publication ironically plays with this idea of girls needing to be rescued. Throughout the magazine the photographs play with the idea of the damsel in distress. The strong women featured in the photographs are adorned in impractical gowns and jewellery, reflecting the possibility of being feminine and powerful. This theme of rejecting the weakness associated with ‘the feminine’ continues throughout the written works. The articles, poems and short stories reflect the diversity and abilities of the students of the University of Western Australia. While preparing this issue I was overwhelmed by the talent and energy of all those involved. The unique parameters of this publication allowed the artists and writers license to express their point of view. The publication of The Damsel would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of the UWA Student Guild and all those involved. Special thanks must go to George Leach whose resourcefulness and vision shines throughout the magazine. I hope you enjoy reading this year’s publication and appreciate the range of opinions and ideas presented. Emily Micalizzi Women’s Affairs Officer 2010 UWA Student Guild

Sub-Editors Nikki Graham George Leach Debahuti Chaliha Hannah Morgaine Creative Director George Leach Design Mary Lannigan Photography Essie Mitchell (S|EE Photography) Make-Up Artist Betsy Westphal Fashion Design Lisa Motherway Models Dani Sunario Lisa Motherway George Leach Damsel Magazine UWA Student Guild Women’s Department M300 35 Stirling Highway Crawley WA 6009 womens@guild.uwa.edu.au

Contents 5

My Favourite Shoes: One Woman’s Experience in the Mining Industry Rebecca Riley

Gertrude and Alice: We Will Ask and We Will Tell. Gabrielle Everall

“Money-grubbing, Gold-digging Whores”: How Gender is represented in the Reality Romance Genre Alice Commander

The Unseeing I Gabrielle Everall

Stargazing Gabrielle Everall

Miss Kate Ludwig’s Silence. Yvonne Kiddle

The Crone Sisters Gabrielle Everall

Women And Paranormal Beliefs – When Yahoo Answers Gets It Wrong Kylie Sturgess

Playboy and ‘The Girls of the Playboy Mansion’: The mainstreaming of pornography into popular culture Emily Micalizzi

My Favourite Shoes: One Woman’s Experience in the Mining Industry

On site life is a different world – not only do you see your colleagues all day for your ten, eleven, or twelve hour shift, you have breakfast with them, lunch with them, dinner with them, you go to the bar with them, the gym with them, see them in the laundry, and your rooms are next to each other. You are never expected to be wearing make-up, or have your hair ‘done’ for work. You get to wear jeans, big shirts, steel caps, and, in winter, huge jackets. Everyone is very laid back, and I have to admit you do find your Australian accent getting a little bit stronger and more swear words making it in to your daily vocabulary. You find yourself becoming accustomed to hearing things in every day conversation that would probably shock you in a corporate workplace, and your name is quickly shortened to a nickname, generally based on your last name (I was either Bec or Riles). Any apprehension I had about site work was, for the most part, immediately forgotten.

Rebecca Riley I love shoes. It is an achievement if you can get me to walk past a shoe store without going in. I form a very close bond with my shoes, as anyone who was there recently when a pair was stolen from a party can attest to. My favourite pair of shoes, however, are not a pair that are going to see a night out on the town. My favourite shoes are my steel caps – light brown (‘wheat’ actually), slightly too big, and usually with clumps of crusty red dirt stuck to them. They are my favourite because when I wear them, I feel like more of a part of the industry that I have grown to love – mining. ‘Women in Mining’ is a term you hear a lot in the industry. There are international, national, local and intra-company networks supporting, promoting, and celebrating women in mining. Growing in size and influence, these networks are vital for women as a minority in the industry. While not as uncommon as they were even ten years ago, women are unfortunately still drastically under-represented in the mining industry, with women comprising approximately 14% of the industry (although this number drops significantly if only mine sites are considered). Women have come a long way, but clearly, we still have a long way to go.

Thankfully, I am fortunate enough to work for a company that has 25% women overall, and 19% women on site. So it is safe to say that the men I worked with were very used to having women around at work. I neither personally experienced, nor witnessed, any of the horror stories you hear about women in the mining industry. However, I am not going to lie and say that it is not a different experience for a woman on site than it is for a man. The women definitely stick together. You eat together, go to the gym together, and drink together. When you walk into the dry mess (dining hall) of the wet mess (bar) you eyes immediately scan for a table with the girls or the guys with whom you work directly on a day-to-day basis, because you know sitting with the guys you aren’t completely familiar with may give off the wrong impression. You know that even though the girls also frequent the bar, the drinking area that is located away from the dongas (rooms) that is used once the bar shuts is not a good place for women to go. You know that you can’t use the swimming pool because it is right next to the bar, and any woman swimming draws an unwelcome, and not in any way subtle, audience. You make sure you get back to the laundry before your dry cycle has finished so that you are the first to open it. While these are predominantly precautionary measures, it is unfortunate that you feel they are necessary.

Despite being from the mining state, I knew very little about mining. I knew people made lots of money “working on the mines” and envisioned dirty men in overalls, heading into a ‘mine’ wearing hardhats with a torch on the front (just to clarify, my idea of what a mine actually looked like was pretty much limited to the mine that the seven dwarfs worked in, in Snow White). The resources industry was not something I had ever really considered before I started working for a mining company. Even once I had started; working in Human Resources in a corporate office in Perth isn’t exactly diving head-first into the industry. My first real taste of mining came when I had the amazing experience of working fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) at a Gold mine for three months.

There was also the reality that though the permanent staff on site were used to the high level of female participation that was enjoyed, the contractors (who actually outnumbered the permanent staff) work on a multitude of sites, most of which, if not all, with a much lower level of female participation, and some with a very different attitude towards women. So you did hear the occasional inappropriate comment, but 99% of the time one of the older men would usually smack whoever said it across the back of the head and tell them to pull their head in, and anything serious is dealt with swiftly by the company.

Leading up to my secondment to the mine I was slightly terrified, for three reasons. 1) I had to get my manual license before I could go, 2) I had to juggle 10 hours days with full time university study and 3) I was going to be a woman on a mine site, and in an industry, dominated my men. Having been involved with the various women in mining networks, I had heard horror stories of women facing men downing tools simply because they had been employed; having to walk two kilometres in 40 degree heat to reach the only female toilets on site; or having your underwear stolen from on-site dryers. But, I passed my manual drivers test, packed my textbooks into my bag, laced up my steel caps and headed to Skippers airport at 5:30 am, mentally preparing myself for what was to come.

Yes, there were aspects of site work that are different or even difficult for women, but nonetheless, I would still take a FIFO role over and Perth role, all things being equal. I am not, however, going to profess that my experience is typical of what all women face when entering the industry. There are still plenty of women facing a really tough uphill battle just trying to do their job. But things are getting better every day. Women are well established in the mining industry, and we are here to stay. I think it is important for women who are considering a career in resources, or even women who have never considered a career in resources, to know that mining can be a great industry for women. So, as I put on my newest pair of heels, I look over to my steel caps and smile, secretly wishing I could wear them out instead.

My first swing on site was amazing. I got to drive down into the pit, watch a blast, and got to go on an underground tour (I was a little too excited about that fact that I was wearing overalls, and a hardhat with a torch on the front). I saw visible gold in the rock-face, a little underground waterfall, goats, a camel, kangaroos, and rabbits. I discovered how awesome it is to have all your meals cooked for you, your room cleaned for you, free Foxtel and a bar where drinks cost around $3.00. The people on site were warm and welcoming, always willing to help you when you were lost, and always greeting you with a smile and a “good morning” on your way to breakfast (I still can’t understand how they are all so cheery at 5:00 am). 5

Gertrude and Alice: We Will Ask and We Will Tell.

They are riding in Lady Godiva one hundred years above legislation above typesetting above the fears of the printer all the men of the world are their escort the G.I Joes and the gay G.I Joes They are riding in Aunty who is never superflous but always a spinster uncaring of the right to existence just getting on with it They are the gatekeepers to the first museum of modern art caches of Matisse and Picasso the voice of Apollonaire they are preferred to the millionaires Alice thought Louis the thirteenth becoming of Gertrude Gertrude’s toes touch the prows of Gondolas Alice a Venetian lagoon and a Gondolier they knew their movement of life forward and back Alice preferring to be uncorsetted cut Gertrude’s hair ‘shorter, darling shorter’ Gertrude sang Gloria in Excelsis.

- Gabrielle Everall

“Money-grubbing, Gold-digging Whores”: How Gender is represented in the Reality Romance Genre Alice Commander Reality romance television as a genre involves contestants competing with each other for the ‘love’ and attention of one person of the opposite sex. This genre of television presents particular gender representations. Two such examples of reality romance are Joe Millionaire and The Bachelor. During these programs young women are taken on elaborate dates, and eliminated week by week until a winner is chosen by the male protagonist, for love and possibly marriage. Television executives use reality romance television to present and reinforce female beauty standards and appropriate roles and aspirations for women. In addition, they use the ‘romance’ of fairytale symbolism to conceal the conservative and traditional ideas about gender that are being presented. Women are positioned as rivals competing for “love, financial security and the ultimate prize of male validation” (Pozner 53). Love and money are interconnected in this genre as men are given the illusion of wealth, an elevated class status and thus power, which are apparently necessary to attract the female contestants. Reality romance television presents problematic gender ideals through the representations of women and men on the programs to a primarily female, young to middle-aged audience through the use of editing, plotlines and fairytale imagery. Hot, Desperate and Dumb? High importance is placed on the appearance of women in The Bachelor and Joe Millionaire. Attractive women who will conform to, and reinforce “current US standards of female beauty” are chosen to participate in such shows, as one participant commented: “[a]ll the women are beautiful, gorgeous and skinny” (Yep and Camacho 339). Such television shows objectify women’s bodies through the use of camera angles and selective editing: throughout The Bachelor and Joe Millionaire cameras zoom in on the girls’ bodies, focussing on their breasts, butts, and legs. The shows also uses numerous scenes of the contestants in the pool and hot tub to further objectify their bodies. Brophy-Baermann notes one example where “the camera pans up women’s bodies, focusing on breasts, bellies and butts, disembodied voices describe Andrew” (13). Pozner argues that the emphasis such shows place on the women’s bodies sends out a message that “women categorically “are” certain things – for example, no matter their age, they’re “hot girls,” not self-aware or intelligent adults” (50). Women on reality television are not valued for their intelligence: even when intelligent women are selected to be on show, their intelligence is downplayed. One contestant who is a law student is referred to as a waiter on The Bachelor (BrophyBaermann para 46). The most successful contestants are “pretty, passive and intellectually unthreatening” (Pozner 53). In the most recent season of The Bachelor the final three contestants were a cheerleader and two realtors, whereas among the women eliminated in week one were a teacher, a graduate student and two law students. The focus on the women’s bodies positions them as objects, rather than intelligent subjects: even where women were described as “‘extremely intelligent,’ the show focussed on their physical appearance – body shape, clothing, make-up, and hairstyle” (Yep and Camacho 339). The message reality television shows give to young women is that to find love, women need to be beautiful and should tone down their intelligence. 9

Joe Millionaire and The Bachelor send out particular messages about appropriate roles and desires for women to aspire to. Women in these shows are overwhelmingly presented as “desperate” to find love, marriage and male validation. Shows are constructed through selective editing to “drive home the notion that no emotional, professional or political accomplishment can possibly compare to with the twin vocations of beauty and marriage” (Pozner 53). In the third season of The Bachelor a contestant weeps that all she wants is for her father to walk her down the aisle (Brophy-Baermann para 40). Edited segments of contestants discussing weddings and marriage “explicitly reinforced heteronormative standards for women” (Yep and Camacho 340). The role of a wife is also discussed by the female contestants, one of whom proclaims: “I will make the best wife for Bob because I will be a servant to him…I’ll just rub his feet, and have dinner ready for him, and just love him!” (Pozner 51). Subservience to men and “archaic gender roles” are normalized in television programs such as these, where women are presented as desperate to find a man (Yep and Camacho 339).

The show “proceeds from the premise that every woman is a gold-digger at heart” (Harris 356), a theme which is reinforced in The Bachelor. In the third season of The Bachelor class and wealth are connected to masculinity, as any contestant chosen by Andrew Firestone, heir to a large fortune, would be achieving social mobility and “marrying up.” This theme is reinforced in the show through the announcements that “teach us that women are “money-grubbing, gold-digging whores,” as one Bachelor contestant was described” (Pozner 52). The conjoined themes of love and money connect to the fairytale symbolism, “it is implicit to the genre of fairytales that heroines receive fortunes upon marrying” (Graham-Bertolini 341). Even in Joe Millionaire where the male protagonist was revealed not to be wealthy after all, the chosen female still received half of a million dollar fortune presented to the final couple. Therefore love and money are interconnected in these shows as beautiful women, who are usually of a lower class status than the bachelor, are presented with an opportunity to attempt to move up the social hierarchy through winning the love of a “rich, successful bachelor (or a penniless poser)” (Pozner 52).

Fairytale Symbolism Implicit and explicit instances of fairytale rhetoric are found in reality romance television. Programs use fairytale symbolism like ‘Once upon a time,’ ‘Cinderella,’ ‘fantasy date,’ and ‘happily ever after’ in the narration (Yep and Camacho 339-340). The ‘happily ever after’ theme presents marriage and the wedding as the ultimate goal and happy ending for one lucky contestant. This ‘happily ever after’ theme is alluded to by Morrison, who notes that The Bachelor is broadcast on a channel owned by Disney, which is in the business of fairytales (255) Disney offers consumers fairytale weddings where they can ride on white horses and in Cinderella carriages, like in their films, and not unlike the contestants on reality romance television (255). Fairytale rhetoric has a specific effect in the representation of gender, as fairytales reinforce the image of the “virtuous passive female and the strong active male whose job it is to validate her existence by rescuing and then marrying her” (Graham-Bertolini 342). In Joe Millionaire the girls are taken to the “‘castle,’ via horse-and-carriage, in a scene reminiscent of Cinderella’s arrival at the ball” (Graham-Bertolini 342). Bachelors are presented riding white horses symbolising their role as the “prince”. Not only are the producers of the show constructing fairytale imagery, but contestants are also reinforcing it. A 21-year-old Bachelor contestant says: “I want somebody to share my life with so it is not so dull. I am ready to feel like Cinderella” (Brophy-Baermann para 13). This all works to reinforce a construction of women in which they appear to be desperately waiting for male validation. Graham-Bertolini asserts that sometimes “[t]he fairytale imagery is blatant, meant in fact to be humorously apparent” (342). Whilst the imagery may be obvious, the underlying messages of passive princesses and active princes are partly obscured by the “romance” that fairytales seems to suggest.

Women as Competitors Women on Joe Millionaire and The Bachelor are positioned to compete with each other. This creates tension and constructs the women to come across as spiteful and unpleasant. Harris asserts that “[w]omen are readily typecast by fellow contestants as bitches, flirts, sluts, and nags” (356). This can be seen in season eleven of The Bachelor where the girl’s conversations are edited down to sound bites where they insult each other: “Girls are bitches, they’ll stab you in the back in a second”; “McNasty, she smells like a fish taco”; “McCarten is just an ugly skank”. The producers of the show select footage that emphasizes the “cat fights” and rivalry (Yep and Camacho 339), in The Bachelor an announcer declares: “The backstabbing begins”, and “a Joe Millionaire preview promises, ‘The claws come out’” (Pozner 52). This negative representation of women sends out a message that “[girls] can be conniving, deceiving and vicious” (as one contestant states) and that women should not be trusted (Pozner 52). The most alarming thing about these representations is that some viewers perceive them to represent reality. Mendible states that her female students “casually agree that women are ruthless when vying for male attention,” she is troubled by this view as the young women do not see a system that “reinforces the systematic humiliation of women” (337). Careful editing and selection of footage constructs the women on these programs to appear competitive, jealous and unpleasant. The television programs Joe Millionaire and The Bachelor, as representatives of the reality romance genre, objectify women’s bodies and place a high importance on their looks. This constructs women’s value in relation to their looks rather than other qualities such as their intelligence, which works to remove their subjectivity. This is reinforced through the way women are presented as desperately searching for a husband to be subservient to. Fairytale symbolism partly serves to remove the opportunity for criticism of these roles, as they appear normalized under the guise of ‘romance’. Money plays a significant role in these ‘fairytales,’ as part of the fairytale symbolism and the higher class and economic status of the male is implicit. This works to present a negative representation of some of the women, who are seen to be only interested in a man for his wealth. Young to middle-aged female viewers are presented with primarily negative stereotypical images of women as passive subjects, relying on a male agent for ‘rescue’.

For Love, or Money Money is a recurrent theme in reality romance television. While the women on reality television shows have to be beautiful to attract a mate “reality TV tells us that all men need is wealth – their own, or an illusion borrowed from producers – to be Mr. Right” (Pozner 53). The eligible bachelors presented in The Bachelor are all given the illusion of wealth and an elevated class status by being dressed in expensive clothing and taking the contestants out on lavish dates. In Joe Millionaire, Even Marriot, a working class construction worker was “taught to act comfortable in his new luxurious surroundings” (GrahamBertolini 342).

Please see index for referencing. 10

The Unseeing I

Vita doesn’t see the coast of Sinai the Ukraine under snow Babylon under the moon Baghdad in early morning the sea of Azov the valley of the kings the broken columns of Persepolis she sees Virginia in her blue overalls a thunderstorm in Vezelay the ceilings of Long Barn softly contracting and expanding London is a desert Virginia in sleeping droughts TRANS-DESERT MAIL the seal of the G.P.O as inviolate as Virginia letters are terrible necromancy thanks to Einstein two days ago you were doing this: ‘what are you doing now!’

- Gabrielle Everall

Stargazing

‘It seems to me that I only begin to live after the sun has gone down and the stars have come out’. Vita Sackville-West. ‘Star-gazing?’ the men taunt we look up at the stars at night we have thrown away our husband’s wedding rings we are madwomen together the Bacchi even the shrink said ‘she wants to see he sisters’ we have Vita picks up more than Virginia’s scarlet gloves writes letters by the light of the waxing moon at midnight on her knees wearing pants of whipchord she twists her pen like a knife.

- Gabrielle Everall

Miss Kate Ludwig’s Silence. Yvonne Kiddle Stories float their way up and down the Maine coastline, in between the cluttered weave of clapboard houses, so much so, that a visitor like myself, picking amongst the carve of shells that sang upon the beach that bright-winged summer, might, like Sarah Orne Jewett’s luminous narrator of the Pointed Firs, find one that just won’t go. The attic of the mind is a curious place; it starves it’s cupboards of the lucid air; it shuts up sunlight in dreams so tall, that should posterity ever deign to mistake them for the masterworks they are, they are quickly betokened, tagged as fruitless, arcane things hanging from poignant trees, like a thousand long-dead Christmases, better not toiled over in the hapless labour of the present, but rather left to slumber, anaesthetized on the table like a certain recalcitrant patient, celebrated only later when the unkind storm has passed, in the over-ordered elegance of verse. I have a story, floating like a glass hem on the sea. I have a story, born in the antique twist of ravaged colour; I have a story, buzzy as a woken summer bee. It wings into the dark cage of my mind, and although the sun is shining, although my feet remember the solid pattern of the weathered beach and my hands recall the ribbed, revealed pleasance of the shells (mandatory reading for the blind), my heart rather recalls the distant, screaming descant of the gulls, and the wind of narrow track, which led us to the house that summer’s day: “Come with me,” said my tide-bound lover, and I did - I confess: I went. We flew across the sand to an old house. I followed her up the steps of this museum piece, paved in rustless art and the fine, mosaic lace of dwindled webs. “Look around,” she said. “-Why?” Furniture sat on its four squat feet, following us here and there, surreptitiously, as the dream presided. Up we went, through the walls, the halls, the lonely corridors of this house that lay insurrective by the sea; gilt-framed heads stared down at us, tootightly buttoned at the neck, breath misted on the winking, windowed glass. Up past the pining, pin-stuck mannequins, the wardrobes full of stealth, undying furs, past the goblin clamour of the lace; up the wooden-handled stairs, and at last into the attic, that place beneath the stars, where the universe wanders out into blossom and deep-rooted, concocts the weary God-space that the centuries have unmasked – Shhh! Do not wake them up! It is dangerous is it not, to play with the framed constructions of the living? After all, the mind must matter to its dead, who, in anticipation calibrate the soul to be just so light, as to fly up to God’s good heaven, leavened thus --Pay no attention to my foot-fall. If I could creep, I would be as silent as a mouse. Our echoes fall around the house, like stones. And when we arrive at the top, at the triangulated cavern of the attic, measured by the urbane physics of some withered, wide-boned hand, we take our breath and incant a spell of calm, gathered round the maiden-dust of fallen roses, blowsy with their undeciphered sin. “This is the story of Kate Ludwig”, says my lover, holding out her sand-encrusted hand– “Come---” Into a shell of an ear, sings the sea; nothing claims you quite so much as the quavered, plaintive quaking of a sea-song. Ms Ludwig was a seamstress, a century ago. When women were not legitimate without men. Brothers, husbands, fathers, uncles – all those sacred guardians of The Perfidy of Pleasure; purveyors of the Profane Purity in the room – Look! White, translucent skin, slender arms, breast, neck; the voice, unwilling yet, to tell… Like swans, we sail over the dark waters of the floor, to Ms Ludwig’s treasured chest. “K.L.” it proclaims somewhat nervously in gold, glinting in a tarnished slough of darkness. My salt-blessed lover will explain: Kate Ludwig was a spinster until she was thirty-six – such an age, back then! All hope of anything further quite collapsing! And then, she got engaged to be married, to some Enigmatic Mining Man.

For a year, she took to her room. Put her steady foot upon the treadle of her machine. Like some hope-drunk spider, she spun her fond trousseau, gifts of garments to herself, theorems of flight, from a life too sacred to be lonely, from a life, too lonely altogether to be quite right. Night and day, day and night, the little sewing-machine of Kate Ludwig sang its way across the growing avenues of stitches - collars and waistbands, darts and zig-zag seams, leg o’ mutton sleeves and dainty muslin cuffs, discrepancies of thoughts that materialized in the needlework of love, in the sanctioned matrimony of a Faith, wedded to the epitome of God’s demonstrated Love, that is, a tailored husband – late (but nonetheless, all conceded) Just in Time. You could almost hear the little seamstress’ sighs, floating around the attic like so many intrepid brown-burned butterflies… and always, always the juggernaut declension of the machine. But then, after a full year of bated breath and ardent toil, a letter came (knock! Knock!). ‘To Miss Kate Ludwig’, it declared in a voice like the song of a wet violin, in a voice like the howl of a cat in the wind; in a voice that disturbed the sea. It was from Miss Ludwig’s fiancée. Apportioning the blame. “My heart has been taken by another,” it said. “Good-bye”. And the night before the wedding, the door slammed shut; the voice closed the spindled door with a bang. * * How is the human heart recovered?

Once love has warmed itself within its walls, and gone, perhaps never to return, how long before the belated caption of the nightmare? I was loved, once. I was once loved. No, I wasn’t. “This sham of a man”, says Miss Kate Ludwig, “lay in the shadow of God”. And she stopped up her heart, and put away all of the beautiful clothes - into this very chest, the very one which my little story rests upon - and turned the locks in all of the doors, never to sing again. The little machine had sung its last: was closed. And she lived; and then she died. “She was my father’s Great-Great-Aunt”, says my salt-wind, sun-tipped lover, wiping the sea-tears from her eyes. I move closer and offer her a kiss, aboard the saintly, sunken boat of Miss Kate Ludwig’s treasure trunk, the darling, drowning lead of her most unborn trousseau. “How do stories end?” You ask, whispering away the tawny-tethered wreath of latent summer. Like tears on a stained-glass sea; they slide off and belittle our heathen peace – Even I could tell you this, even I... And we sat on this chest, my sea-burnt lover and I, holding each other that day; thinking of how each stitch in those clothes, had been a stitch in Miss Kate Ludwig’s heart, and then we thought of this: The unspeakable pain that had undone them.

The Crone Sisters

To be big then was more than normal it was prosperous Beware a woman who takes herself seriously past her procreative prime Gertrude wrote with her eyes bigger then her belly she had a face like a Roman Emperor a mask of Stein that Picasso tried to paint out after ninety sittings Gertrude and Alice are too old for the death camps pretending to be French they eat the body of Madame Cezzane Radclyffe loved to put her five perfect fingers in pockets Gertrudeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clothes are loose and overlayed like the masses while Alice builds her as a broken monument.

- Gabrielle Everall

Women And Paranormal Beliefs – When Yahoo Answers Gets It Wrong Kylie Sturgess The popular website Yahoo Answers (at http://answers.yahoo. com) has a response to the question ‘Why are men always more sceptical than women?’ in regards to claims about the paranormal or pseudoscientific. Apparently men are ”smarter and not as naïve”. This was voted the best response to the question, on a site visited by hundreds of thousands of people - with no references or detailed discussion regarding the contributor’s conclusion. To believe in ‘weird things’ means you lack a sceptical-savviness. Thankfully, the real answer is a little more detailed (and far less insulting) than that! What are the popular opinions about female tendencies to endorse ghosts, horoscopes, alternative medicine ‘cures’ and the like? Psychological research demonstrates that cognitive differences do not equal cognitive deficiencies - in the case of paranormal and supernatural beliefs, there is certainly evidence that women are more likely to affirm their beliefs, but it does not mean that they are definitely more credulous or lacking in intellect. The paranormal is a term that generally refers to alleged phenomena or events asserted to be outside the range of ordinarily accepted forces (Lett, 1990) and belief in the paranormal is no longer considered an eccentricity in the modern world. We can find ‘psychic readings’ in popular women’s magazines and thousands of people attend the ‘speaking with the dead’ extravaganzas of John Edward and Sylvia Browne. Paranormal beliefs are often associated with practices of the occult, magic (as opposed to dramatic performances, sleight-of-hand and dextrous manipulation of items to create illusions), and superstitions. Studies of paranormal beliefs are often done in conjunction with pseudoscientific beliefs, which, according to Preece and Baxter (2000), involves a set of ideas or theories which are claimed to be scientific but which are contrary to standard science and have failed empirical tests (or which cannot in principle be tested), such as the claims of ‘new age’ practices like crystal healing or reiki.

Studies using intelligence tests in conjunction with belief in the paranormal have yielded mixed findings, with some failing to find a relationship (e.g., Wiseman & Watt, 2004) and others demonstrating higher IQ scores in believers than disbelievers (Jones, Russell, & Nickel, 1977). Otis and Alcock (1982) found that an individual’s level of scepticism is negatively related to superstitious beliefs and individuals in certain academic fields may possess a greater level of scepticism than others. Individuals from the natural sciences have been found to be more sceptical than individuals from the humanities, arts, and education, while individuals working in the arts and humanities tend to be relatively more superstitious than individuals in other academic fields (Happs, 1987; Otis & Alcock, 1982; Shermer, 1997). If we take into consideration how traditionally men dominate the fields of science and mathematics, women may be at a disadvantage when it comes to developing a ‘sceptical mindset’. While formal education increases the likelihood of scepticism and a reduction in superstition (Vyse, 1997), Aarnio and Lindeman’s (2006) study of 239 Finnish volunteers demonstrated a disassociation between intuitive thinking (rather than analytical thinking) and scepticism. Paranormal-believing participants demonstrated less emotional stability and assigned more purpose to artificial and random events, thereby pointing to a problem with confusion of core knowledge (knowledge learned without instruction, in terms of intuitive comprehension of physical, biological and psychological entities as well as their processes). Hood (2009) argues that females (as biologically defined) are more inclined as a group towards intuitive reasoning, involving genetic predisposition. His theory of the ‘supersense’, or the human brain’s pre-wiring towards supporting intuitions and superstitions, is suggested as a key to understanding how we can rationalise beliefs. There is also a commonly-held stereotype that women demonstrate better performances on social cognition tests, such as face processing and theory of mind in comparison to men, leading to women demonstrating social skills and understanding other’s perspectives more easily (Hood, 2009). A very recent study using a drug called L-dopa (sometimes applied in treatment of Parkinson’s disease by raising levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain) led experimenters to infer that its presence decreased sensitivity to perceptual-cognitive decisions and promoted conservative in the sample of sceptically minded participants (Krummenacher, Mohr, Haker & Brugger, 2009). These results led to the conclusion that paranormal ideation might profoundly modulate pain assessment, assessment of risky scenarios, recognition of patterns and decision-making. An earlier study by Mohr, Graves, Gianotti, Pizzagalli, and Brugger (2001) also contributed to investigating what commonalities there are between creative thinking, paranormal belief and delusional ideation – leading to further questions as to whether dopamine is the “gullibility neurotransmitter” for non-sceptical people (particularly when the first study only used males and the second used a small number of subjects).

The study of sex differences in science refers to biological differences such as chromosomes and internal and external sex organs; ‘gender’ describes characteristics that an individual’s society defines as masculine or feminine (Unger & Crawford, 1992). Research into believers of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims often compare how males and females respond to surveys on the existence of UFOs, ghosts, whether astrology accurately reflects our lives and so forth (Gallup & Newport, 1991; Wolfradt, 1997; Shermer, 2001). In 2007, a representative quota sample of 1,005 adults in Great Britain aged from 16 years and upward were interviewed via telephone, demonstrating that within the sample belief in telepathy was very strong amongst women (47%) with one in four consulting their horoscope regularly and As research continues into the origins and influences upon parone in four of those believing ‘that horoscopes accurately preanormal and pseudoscientific belief, the contributions of cognidicted events in their lives’ (Ipsos-MORI, 2007). tive neuroscience and technology brings us closer to understandParanormal beliefs can even be influenced by cultural factors ing better the need to believe in these paranormal claims. You such as family, peer groups, media influences, and the persuasive cannot discount the benefits of creative thinking, intuition and power of social institutions (e.g., religious or cultural groups) and highly developed interpersonal skills - yet the potential for pareducation (Clark, 2002; Díaz-Vilela & Álvarez-González, 2004; anormal and pseudoscientific beliefs to lead members of either Schriever, 2000). Socialisation has been used to explain gender sex towards dangerous practices shouldn’t be ignored either. differences concerning the extent of paranormal beliefs. Clark In the meantime, I encourage people to challenge the summa(2005) for example, noted the prevalence of popular culture tion provided by a popular site like Yahoo Answers about what and new age beliefs in teenage females, while Mason, Webber, makes a ‘believing woman’ – with a little more savviness than its Singleton and Hughes (2006) ) recorded a shift towards secular contributors seem to have! views of the world which incorporate many new age beliefs and Please see index for referencing. practices. 22

Playboy and ‘The Girls of the Playboy Mansion’: The mainstreaming of pornography into popular culture Emily Micalizzi

‘Reading Playboy for the articles’ has always been the joke surrounding the appeal of the popular magazine. That clichéd statement used to be the justification for buying the Playboy magazine that is known not so much for its award winning journalism but for showcasing nude photographs of women. Contemporary popular culture is dependent on the visual and in particular the image of the body. This is demonstrated through the example of Playboy Enterprises’ evolution over the decades in terms of how they diversified into different visual outlets. Though the magazine is still widely circulated and very popular, the Playboy bunny icon is attached to other popular and far reaching outlets. Along with the fast selling merchandise and the cable channels, the magazine’s content and ideas are popular in one of the most mainstream of all mediums; television. The E! Television Network broadcasts ‘The Girls of the Playboy Mansion’ reality television show on primetime Foxtel in Australia. This long running series tempts potential viewers by offering them a glimpse into the lifestyle of Hugh Hefner’s three girlfriends; Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson. The show, as an extension of Playboy, is particularly effective as it does away with the distraction of written words and is completely dependent on the appeal of the visual representation of these women’s bodies and how they live in the confined, highly gendered spaces of the mansion. The importance placed on the bodies and designated spaces of the three women are established from the opening credits. The opening credits of the show involves bobble head like figures in a cartoon world. Each of the women are shown in the spaces that they occupied before they moved into the Playboy mansion. Bridget, for example, is shown in a library reading before she is lifted out of that space into a pink bedroom. She is stripped of her graduation cap and reading glasses and moved into a pink space with a sewing machine, balls of wool and knitting needles. The book shelves that appeared in the initial scene are barely visible in the background amongst all the pink. The same thing happens to the other two women as they are plucked out of their old lives and placed into their designated rooms within the mansion. The camera then zooms out of Kendra’s bedroom as the mansion walls close them into their designated rooms. The spaces of the mansion are shown to not only to be very gendered but also very controlled. The grounds of the mansion are constructed in popular culture to be a fantasy land which is referenced in many films and television shows. The tag line for the show is “We call it fantasy. They call it home.” Though the space of the mansion might not be a traditional domestic feminine space, the designated spaces that the women occupy on the show effectively reflect the images of femininity that is put forward by the Playboy magazine. The Playboy magazine is known for a particular image of women. Physical fitness is a huge part of this image with slim women being the only type of women to occupy the centrefolds. Even Kendra, who is labelled as the ‘tom-boy’ of the group succumbs to a certain looks when it is required of her. To be accepted she must do the ‘girly’ things she openly despises like shopping, styling and grooming. It is apparently not acceptable 23

for her to wear the sport clothes that she would prefer to wear but must instead conform to a Barbie doll type aesthetic and dressing up. Femininity becomes a performance for Kendra, the youngest of the women. As the series progresses the audience is taken behind the scenes to see the battle she must go through everyday to be like the other girls. Their bodies are controlled by an ideal and this is reflected in the endless montages of the women attending to their looks; dying their hair, putting on make-up, exercising and trying on different outfits. They are part of the Playboy Enterprise because they reflect an image for the company. They are required to be part of the promotion of Playboy and reflect the Playboy aesthetic. The first edition of Playboy clearly outlined that the magazine was all about men’s desire; “If you’re a man between the ages of 18 and 80, Playboy is meant for you...If you’re somebody’s sister, wife or mother-in-law and picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the man in your life and get back to your Ladies Home Companion...” Playboy and all that it encompasses is perfectly “stylised to the masculine taste”.

“...women are sex objects- defined and valued by their body parts.” By bombarding people with the same images of women on television, viewers are more likely to hold more stereotypical beliefs about appropriate gender roles and images of women. Before the days when porn-stars were house-hold names and before the idea of an exposed video of sexual experiences were cause for embarrassment not pride, these images of women as hyper-sexualised and simple were seen only by those who sought them out. Today these sexualised bodies and highly gendered spaces are now only a click of the mouse or a press of the remote control away. Hidden behind harmless entertainment, ‘The Girls of the Playboy Mansion’ acts as an extension of the promotion of Playboy ideals. Beyond the possibly damaging consequences for young women trying to reach these popular images and lifestyles there is also a danger for contemporary masculinities. If the normalisation of pornography continues then it seems likely that men will develop increasingly less healthy attitudes towards women and sex. The link between pornography and violence has been widely studied with feminist anti-pornography groups using the slogan, “pornography is the theory, rape is the practice.’ However the other long term effects on men and their images of women perhaps requires further study, especially when it seems in some women are embracing the ideologies of pornography.

The caricatured characters in ‘The Girls of the Playboy Mansion’ are blonde, slim, white and have large breasts, furthering the cliché of what it means to be a beautiful woman. Their lifestyles as well as their looks reflect a kind of Barbie aesthetic. Though scenes are shown of Holly and Bridget doing such work as helping out at photo-shoots, hosting television shows and attending college, they take second place to images of feminine tasks such as organising parties, gifts and outfits. In episode 14 from season 3, ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Luncheon?’ Bridget proudly boasts how she co-ordinated the wrapping of a present to the colours of the outfit that the receiver of the gift would be wearing at her Playmate of the Year ceremony. Other activities that the women are shown performing include such things as attending to their pets, getting new rims for their cars, travelling, having slumber parties and learning to scuba dive. These women present a ‘grown-up’ image of Barbie with a lifestyle that is apparently envied.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines pornography as “The explicit description or exhibition of sexual subjects or activity in literature, painting, films, etc., in a manner intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic feelings; printed or visual material containing this.” Under this definition the Playboy magazine can be considered pornographic as its photographs are widely considered erotic rather than aesthetic. It is difficult to place ‘The Girls of the Playboy Mansion’ in the same category. Though there are episodes that document naked photo shoots, the majority of the everyday activities of these women are not erotic or highly sexual. The majority of the content involves a look not into the sex lives of these women but rather an insight into their lifestyles. Their travelling and shopping adventures can hardly seem erotic yet it cannot be ignored that this television show is an extension of the Playboy Enterprises and as such it is a prime example of how popular culture encompasses ideas and images that are pornographic. These women exist as highly sexualised beings and as accessories of Hugh Hefner. Playboy’s ideals are represented in their controlled bodies and spaces with the bunny icon dominating their decor, appearing on their clothes and their cars. And in the case of Holly, a pink tattoo on her lower back brands her in a way as part of the Playboy image. Playboy, as part of popular culture in contemporary times has shown a move away from the written word towards the visual image. Through the medium of television, the Playboy ideals and concepts surrounding feminine bodies and space are represented and normalised through the bodies and lifestyles of women of ‘The Girls of the Playboy Mansion’. This show, as a visual representation of Playboy, uses commercialised, stereotypical gender as a marketing ploy by telling men what is desirable and in turn, telling women how to be desirable.

Though pornography still caters to the ideas of male desire it is now arguably influencing both genders as it becomes mainstreamed and every day. “Pornography is the sexuality of the millennium, elaborated to achieve all the staggering impact of which the mega-media are capable, projecting the images of the best-known sex objects as far as distant planets in galaxies unknown.” In contemporary culture there seems to be a move towards some women not only accepting pornography’s presence but also fully embracing the ideals that it puts forward. Under the banner of sexual empowerment young girls and women are aspiring to what they see on television. ‘The Girls of the Playboy Mansion,’ through its images of the ‘ideal’ body, spaces and lifestyle, puts forward an unrealistic and potentially dangerous outdated image of femininity. These women are the embodiment of the stereotypical male idea of women as presented in pornographies. They are visually sexually appealing, dependent on the male in their lives and exist only in the spaces of the fantastical mansion. There are no scenes of arguments between Hefner and his girlfriends but from the pilot we see such scenes as Kendra tentatively asking is she is allowed to watch a movie downstairs with a friend. This subordinate behaviour is inadvertently sexualised in the show. This television show is not the only example of the pornography and its ideals becoming mainstreamed in popular culture.

Please see index for referencing.

There are many arguments against the popularisation of pornography. The dominant story that pornography entails is that 24

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