TOPIC: sexism

A Gym's Urinal Shaped Like A Woman's Mouth: Extreme Sexism Or Upside-Down Art?

In the Italian city of Turin, a gym has installed urinals that appear to be shaped like a woman's open mouth. From Duchamp to Warhol to Mick Jagger, everything we see is in the eyes of the beholder.

-Analysis-

TURIN — A photo posted online last week has sparked outrage and debate in Italy. The now infamous image from inside the men's bathrooms of the McFit gym in Turin shows urinals that are shaped like a woman's open mouth. While some are denouncing it as sexist, others are calling it art, or simply a joke — posing the broader question of why it's so important to discuss objectification?

The problem lies in the starting point, in the gaze that conditions all what we see, every perception we have of this country, every single prejudice.

Who said that large red lips, with a hint of teeth from a toothpaste commercial's perfect smile, are inherently feminine? Yes, there's lipstick, the heart-shaped line, but they are objects of fantasy, a creative design that doesn't belong to a specific gender: in this case, urinals that a chain of gyms has hung in its bathrooms in an attempt to use art for an easy laugh.

But our point of view changes, the game collapses, and since the game is always the same, it's time to dismantle it. And it's quite easy to do so. Indeed the inspiration originally comes from the famous design of Mick Jagger's lips and tongue. Yes, a man.

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The Rubiales Kiss & 11 Other Cases Of Football's Die-Hard Machismo And Sexual Aggression

A coach who trivializes a gang rape, a ballon d'or winner who is asked if she knows how to twerk, Spanish national team players chanting "bottle blonde..." When Luis Rubiales kissed Jennifer Hermoso without her consent, it was just the latest example of how the male-dominated sport hasn't changed with the times. In Spain, and beyond...

This article was updated Aug. 24 at 12:15 p.m

-Analysis-

MADRID — By now, many have seen the image from Sunday night: After Spain's national team won the Women's World Cup, Spanish Football Federation chief Luis Rubiales kissed football player Jennifer Hermoso without her consent. Finally, after 24 hours of international media coverage and a request for explanations from Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, Rubiales has admitted in a video that "certainly" he made a mistake.

Still, the statement has been widely criticized after Rubiales downplayed his behavior and argued that it occurred in "a moment of extreme euphoria, without any bad intentions, without any bad faith, and what happened, happened. In a very spontaneous way, I repeat, without bad faith on either side."

It is of course a meaningless statement since it was Rubiales who kissed Hermoso after holding her face with both hands, something that the female player in the locker room right afterwards said she couldn't stop and didn't like.

What images you may have not seen yet, is another video that went viral showing Rubiales celebrating in the VIP box after the national team's victory by grabbing his genitals.

Late Wednesday, El Pais reports, the FUTPRO women players' union issued a joint statement with Hermoso to confirm that it would be representing her in the matter, calling for "exemplary measures" to be taken against Rubiales and declaring their "firm and resounding condemnation of conduct that violates the dignity of women." The Spanish women's league on Wednesday called Rubiales' actions "disgusting" and demanded his resignation.

This display of machismo by the president of the Spanish Football Federation is by no means an isolated case in a sport that, despite having modernized in many respects, continues to live in the past. COPE radio commentator Manolo Lama quipped that those who complained about Rubiales' kiss of Hermoso did so because they had not been kissed themselves.

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Society

Ana Flores

Why The Media Deserves A Red Card At The Women's World Cup

Coverage of the Women's World Cup has been more about the athletes' personal lives than sport. Once again, sexism in sport is on fully display.

-OpEd-

The competition for the 2023 Women's Soccer World Cup, which began on July 20 and concludes on August 20 in Australia and New Zealand, has already caused several controversies. Days prior to the first match, the United Nations and the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) estimated that there would be an audience of two million people.

Despite initial enthusiasm for the “Unite for gender equality," the media once again showed its lack of interest, commitment and professionalism to strengthening international guidelines against discrimination.

Weeks before the opening match between New Zealand and Norway, the conglomerates of the Global North revealed what, apparently, is the only reason they have for promoting women's sport: monetary benefits.

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Society

Mrinal Pande*

The Problem With India's Violence Against Women Starts At The Linguistic Level

The clear lack of words, in Hindi and other Indian vernaculars, to describe feminine reproductive organs, feminine hygiene or women’s reproductive rights, says a lot about a country plagued by violence against women and rampant rape culture.

Have you — who do not read or write in the Indian vernaculars — ever wondered about the semantic problem faced when writing about sexual abuse in Hindi?

Working on a book on the reproductive health of India’s rural women a decade ago, I was taken aback by India's vernaculars’ near uniform lack of a clear terminology for feminine reproductive organs, feminine hygiene, or clinically graphic discussions on women’s reproductive rights and wrongs.

Like Hindi, in Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, Punjabi and Haryanvi, I was told the only commonly used terms for "sex" and "sexual pleasure", were available in a crude gutter language, straight out of all-male gatherings, street sex and our traditional country and pop songs, all of which celebrate male sexuality and see women as a sum total of their private parts.

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Society

Mariana Rolandi

Shakira, Miley Cyrus And The Double Standards Of Infidelity

Society judges men and women very differently in situations of adultery and cheating, and in divorce settlements. It just takes some high-profile cases to make that clear.

-Analysis-

BUENOS AIRES — When Shakira, the Colombian pop diva, divorced her soccer star husband Gerard Piqué in 2022, she wrote a song to overcome the hurt and humiliation of the separation from Piqué, who had been cheating on her.

The song, which was made in collaboration with Argentine DJ Bizarrap and broke streaming records, was a "healthy way of channeling my emotions," Shakira said. She has described it as a "hymn for many women."

A day after its launch, Miley Cyrus followed suit with her own song on her husband's suspected affairs. Celebrities and influencers must have taken note here in Argentina: Sofía Aldrey, a makeup artist, posted screenshots of messages her former boyfriend had sent other women while they were a couple.

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food / travel

Mariana Iglesias

Meet Blanca Alsogaray, The First Woman To Win Cuba's "Oscar Of Cigars"

For the first time, Cuba's prestigious annual cigar festival recognized a woman, Alsogaray, owner of an iconic cigar shop in Buenos Aires, as the top representative of this celebrated lifeline of the Cuban economy.

BUENOS AIRES — Cigars are traditionally reserved for a man's world. But this year, for the first time, a Latin American woman has won one of three awards given at the 23rd Habano Festival in Cuba.

Every year since 2000, the Festival has gathered the top players in the world of Cuban cigars including sellers, distributors, specialists and aficionados. A prize is given to an outstanding personality in one of three areas: production, communication and sales. The latter went to Blanca Alsogaray, owner of the Buenos Aires shop La Casa del Habano. She says these prizes are not unlike the "Oscars of cigars."

"It's a sexist world for sure, but I won," she said of a prize which was called "Habano Man" (Hombre habano) until this year, when the word was changed for her.

"It recognizes a lifetime's work, which I consider so important as Argentina isn't an easy place for business, and less so being a woman." She was competing with two men. "In truth," she added. "I really do deserve it."

Alsogaray opened her shop in 1993. At the time there were only two sellers anywhere of Cuba's premium, hand-rolled cigars, the other one being in Mexico. Now habanos are sold in 150 outlets worldwide. "I want to celebrate these 30 years, and the prize. We're going to have a big party," she said. The firm celebrated its 30th anniversary on May 16.

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Society

Álvaro Filho

The Brazilian Singer Trying To Shake The Sexism Out Of Samba

The Brazilian singer Nega Jaci has performed a new version of the well-known samba “Mulheres,” by Martinho da Vila, adapted by two Brazilian women to remove the sexist tone of the original lyrics.

LISBON — It's Saturday night in Lisbon, Portugal, and on stage at the bar Samambaia, in the Graça neighborhood, the beating of the tambourine and the strumming of the guitar signal the beginning of a hit by the carioca samba singer Martinho da Vila, which lists the various women who passed through the life of a man.

But this Saturday, the original version re-emerged as a new, liberating and empowered reinterpretatio, sung by Brazilian artist Nega Jaci.

Instead of "I've had women of all colors," Nega Jaci sings “We are women of all colors,” from an updated version created by Brazilian artists Doralyce and Silvia Duffrayer in 2018 – an adaptation that rewrites some stanzas of the original lyrics and which, since then, has become an anthem of female resistance in the “patriarchal” universe of samba.

The rewritten version by the Brazilian duo removes references to “unbalanced and confused” women in the lyrics, replacing them with feminist heroes in Brazil, including Chica da Silva and Elza Soares. Jaci also included a tribute to former Carioca councilwoman Marielle Franco, murdered in 2018.

The new lyrics reposition the woman's role, from being responsible for the man's happiness, finally concluding, in a liberated and independent tone, that the woman is everything that she one day dreamed to be.

“Samba lyrics tend to be super sexist and prejudiced, looking at women either as objects to serve men or as someone who needs to be taken care of, without giving due value to female power,” explains Jaci, who was born in Bahia, Brazil as Jacilene Santos Barbosa and has been living in Lisbon for eight years.

The feminist version of the well-known samba is unmissable in her set, and the moment when Jaci sings it in the presentation is preceded by a call to the women in the audience. It is for them that the performance is dedicated.

“I sing in honor of the women, but the men end up listening and reflecting on the theme in their own way,” she says.

This reflection has led other musicians to also look for a way to reposition themselves. Jaci recalls that not even Chico Buarque himself, universally loved among Brazilian musicians and apparently incontestable, is immune to the slippage of lyrics written in other times and contexts, but which now seem to no longer find space in a repertoire governed by political correctness.

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Society

Julián de Zubiría Samper

Toxic Salsa: When Latin Romance Music Glorifies Sexist Violence

Male dominance and violence is often encouraged in popular Latin American music, and particularly in genres like salsa or bachata. The more memorable the songs, the bigger the harm they will have done to generations of women.

BOGOTÁ — In Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America, misogyny is often deeply rooted in culture — and that means in popular music too.

In the romantic world of Salsa music, lyrics can reveal sexist attitudes and provide clues as to what some men are thinking when they lash out.

Colombia's state prosecution service registered almost 48,000 cases of domestic violence in 2022, or 128 every day. These cases include 614 women murdered by partners or former partners — sometimes for having dared to reject them — as well as horrific acid attacks. They are the fruit of a culture that believes women do not control their own lives, but instead belong to men.

In a recent open letter to President Gustavo Petro, a group of artists called for socio-cultural change, focusing particularly on children and young people.

When we listen to music we love, we often barely listen to the lyrics and what they may teach. All our lives, we've listened and danced to so many songs without considering how they degrade women. As I have written before, critical reading of texts and discourses isn't our forte in Colombia. But we can and should start listening critically to many songs that should never have been written, sung or danced to.

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Society

Eugenia Nicolosi

Mapping The Patriarchy: Where Nine Out Of 10 Streets Are Named After Men

The Mapping Diversity platform examined maps of 30 cities across 17 European countries, finding that women are severely underrepresented in the group of those who name streets and squares. The one (unsurprising) exception: The Virgin Mary.

ROME — The culture at the root of violence and discrimination against women is not taught in school, but is perpetuated day after day in the world around us: from commercial to cultural products, from advertising to toys. Even the public spaces we pass through every day, for example, are almost exclusively dedicated to men: war heroes, composers, scientists and poets are everywhere, a constant reminder of the value society gives them.

For the past few years, the study of urban planning has been intertwined with that of feminist toponymy — the study of the importance of names, and how and why we name things.

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A gym's urinal shaped like a woman’s mouth: extreme sexism or upside-down art?

In the Italian city of Turin, a gym has installed urinals that appear to be shaped like a woman's open mouth. From Duchamp to Warhol to Mick Jagger, everything we see is in the eyes of the beholder.

The classic association

The contemporary art of lips

Who's getting excited?

Gang-rape analogy

Do you know how to twerk?

Blame the woman

Coverage of the Women's World Cup has been more about the athletes' personal lives than sport. Once again, sexism in sport is on fully display.

Broadcast rights

Sexism in sport

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The clear lack of words, in Hindi and other Indian vernaculars, to describe feminine reproductive organs, feminine hygiene or women’s reproductive rights, says a lot about a country plagued by violence against women and rampant rape culture.

Terminology deemed rude and offensive

Blaming the victims

Deprived of the language of sex

Addressing sexual violence against women

Society judges men and women very differently in situations of adultery and cheating, and in divorce settlements. It just takes some high-profile cases to make that clear.

Gender violence?

Getting shortchanged

Economic violence

Men as victims of infidelity

For the first time, Cuba's prestigious annual cigar festival recognized a woman, Alsogaray, owner of an iconic cigar shop in Buenos Aires, as the top representative of this celebrated lifeline of the Cuban economy.

Childhood aroma

My vocation

The Brazilian singer Nega Jaci has performed a new version of the well-known samba “Mulheres,” by Martinho da Vila, adapted by two Brazilian women to remove the sexist tone of the original lyrics.

Suite dos Pescadores - Nega Canta a Bahia - Rtp africa

A voice that has gone around the world

Chico Buarque's new feijoada recipe

Male dominance and violence is often encouraged in popular Latin American music, and particularly in genres like salsa or bachata. The more memorable the songs, the bigger the harm they will have done to generations of women.

#1: "If I Catch You" by Ismael Rivera

#2: "Women Are" by Ismael Miranda, and "Indecent Proposal" by Romeo Santos

#3: "Bad Woman," by the Sonora Matancera

#4: Roberto Cantoral's "Prisoner Number Nine"

#5 and more...

The Mapping Diversity platform examined maps of 30 cities across 17 European countries, finding that women are severely underrepresented in the group of those who name streets and squares. The one (unsurprising) exception: The Virgin Mary.

A subtle reminder

Goddesses and Saints

Most inclusive cities

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