Random Acts of Feminism

From the Guardian: Random Acts of Feminism represent a small but lively opportunity to fight back in our everyday lives......thoughts from women's page readers, who responded in droves to a shout-out on this subject last year. If you are looking for quick, effective ways to stand up for yourself - and other women - in 2008, here you go!

Of the many plagues sent to try modern women, the rise of raunch can cause particular anguish. Glance around your local newsagent, and behold: lads' mags, the 1990s joke that just won't go away. A whole genre of magazines, all filled with busty lovelies and pernicious rubbish about how readers can persuade young women to give them a blow job.

So what to do about these? My preferred option is to find my nearest newsagent, ferret out some copies of Good Housekeeping and Mary Beth's Beanie World, and put these nice homely publications neatly at the front of the racks, obscuring the latest lads' mags. You don't even have to touch the hateful things!

There are many popular variations. For instance, one woman I know simply turns the magazines around. Women's page reader Charlie Grrl recommends "subvertising" magazines that offend you by adding your own copy to tawdry covers. Arm yourself with some Post-it notes pre-inscribed with wry, thoughtful lines - "Real Men Buy Books", for example. Or draw a speech bubble ready to animate one of the pouting cover girls. It might say, "I am somebody's sister", or "Despite my come-hither expression, I wouldn't shag a Nuts reader for a million pounds".

And if, for some reason, you decide to buy a newspaper that features bare breasts on page three, then why not ape the eco warriors who leave their excess food packaging at the supermarket checkout, by ripping out the offending page and leaving the excess porn with your newsagent?

1. Many readers were exercised by the lazy use of language, and came up with simple ways to combat it. Rachael in Devon, Alison in Essex and Ann in Edinburgh, for instance, all suggested the random act of Hear No Evil - a refusal to acknowledge anyone using the term "girl" to describe a person over the age of 16.
   Insisting on Ms as a title also cropped up regularly. One woman I heard of became so annoyed by computer programs that only allow women to use the titles Miss or Mrs (yes, such programmes do still exist) that she now solves the problem by entering her title as Mr. Then, when any post arrives addressed to this fictional male character, she knows to bin it straightaway, without even opening it. After all, it is clearly junk mail.



2. Swearing can be a good place to start some random acts, too. Among the long list of expletives with which our fair language is blessed, a disappointing majority refer to the female form, or women's sexual appetite. Adelaide Thomas wrote to say she relished the opportunity to challenge the terms "slag" and "slut", especially when used as throwaway or generic insults about someone who is often "nothing more than a little annoying".
   
   I sometimes liven up my swearing by using those who are hateful, as my hateful slurs. Get out of it, you Clarkson! Another option is to use the kind of "rude words" heard in in-flight films. Melon-farmer may not have the same brute force as the word from which it is perverted, but it can be a lot of fun to use.


3. Calling cards for prostitutes concerned a number of women who wrote in. Sabine Scheuring simply rips them up, while Elaine Hake suggests not just removing them, but adding some advertising of your own, pasting up stickers for sexual violence helplines. You could take it even further. Before you consign those calling cards to the bin, why not fire up your scanner and create some of your own? Amuse yourself with new taglines. "Too sad and ugly for a real girlfriend? Call me!", or "Like to use women? Phone now!" And if the number you include happens to be for a premium rate astrology hotline, well, that's all to the good, isn't it?


4. Another way to help out your fellow women is by providing us with interesting reading material. Red Chidgey, for instance, suggests building "clandestine libraries in unusual locations" and personally delivers lively feminist material to the waiting room coffee table at her local GP practice. When you finish with your copies of Ms, Bust or Bitch magazines then, or suddenly realise that you have two copies of The Second Sex lurking on your bookshelf, why not target the magazine racks of your local library, or just leave a radical book on a park bench? You never know who might pick it up ...


5. Sometimes inaction is the most positive way forward. When the boyfriend of Christine from London started making crude hints about her bikini wax being overdue, for instance, she decided that it was time to let her hair flourish."In this case," she writes, "two weeks was enough to prove the point". (Said boyfriend has since been banished.) And this approach works in other situations too. If you find yourself doing an unfair share of the housework, why not just down tools?


6. The WCs of Britain's clubs and pubs might also be a nice place to awaken some solidarity. Whenever I see something nasty scrawled on the back of a toilet door, I like to add amendments of my own. It only takes a second - and a handy marker pen - to transform something mean-spirited. Cross out the "c" and the "h", for example, and "Jilly is a bitch" can quickly be changed to "Jilly is a bit of a genius".

Finally, I leave you with news of a famous toyshop, where a women's page reader (who shall remain nameless) spent a busy afternoon with her best friend and their daughters. Seeing a large pink plastic castle, she took pity on the blonde in the highest turret. Taking a card from her handbag and inscribing it neatly in black ink, she slid her small sign next to the princess's head. "Please let me out," it read, "I gotta get to work!"