Why does the games industry have such a problem with female protagonists? | Life and style | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2013/jun/12/games-industry-problem-female-protagonists
It’s a tired cliche that all gamers are male, and it’s time manufacturers woke up to the fact that women want to see female characters they can relate to
Le Sharenting en question - The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/may/18/pros-cons-of-sharenting
Les « sharents » (néologisme formé du mot parent et share, partage) sont les parents qui bloguent, tweetent et publient des photos de leurs #enfants... Mais comment ce partage parental affecte les enfants à mesure qu’ils grandissent ? Ne pas différencier ce qui est public de ce qui doit rester privé, demeure un problème, estiment certains psychologues. Les parents qui ne mentionnent pas leurs enfants sur l’internet ne sont-ils pas en passe de devenir de mauvais parents ? Pour beaucoup, les avantages (...)
Was Kate Moss exploited as a young model? - The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2012/oct/31/was-kate-moss-exploited
She is laughing, but the body language couldn’t be clearer – Kate Moss covers her bare breasts with an arm, and hunches over, trying to conceal the rest of her naked body with a sunhat. The photograph, one of a series taken by Corinne Day that also included a topless photograph, appeared in the Face magazine in 1990 and launched Moss’s career, though two decades on she does not remember the shoot as a happy one.
“I see a 16-year-old now, and to ask her to take her clothes off would feel really weird,” she says in an interview with Vanity Fair. “But they were like: If you don’t do it, then we’re not going to book you again. So I’d lock myself in the toilet and cry and then come out and do it. I never felt very comfortable about it.”
Moss also tells the magazine that she sought medical help for anxiety two years later. “Nobody takes care of you mentally. There’s a massive pressure to do what you have to do.”
This happened 20 years ago – and Moss, of course, went on to have a phenomenally successful career, becoming one of the most powerful models, and remained close to Day.
Other models, though, say the industry is not much different now. “Nothing has really changed,” says Victoria Keon-Cohen, a model and founding chair of Equity’s Models’ Committee, which now has around 800 members. “Until we started the union there wasn’t any recognition of this kind of treatment in the industry. We wanted to help young models assert themselves and understand what rights they have. Unfortunately what Kate is talking about does still happen and has happened to me.”
“It is not uncommon for models who are children to be asked to take nude or semi-nude photos,” agrees Sara Ziff. “I started modelling at 14 and there were several occasions where I was put on the spot to take topless photos.” Ziff founded the Model Alliance union in the US to set standards, and doesn’t think “significant change is going to happen until there are laws that protect child models in the way other child performers are protected”. In a previous interview, she described how, when a 16-year-old model complained that a 45-year-old photographer had propositioned her, “her agency said she should have slept with him”.
But as Moss’s comments show, it isn’t only predatory men who are the problem, but a blurring between sexual imagery and fashion, and the models who have to negotiate it are often young – and fear speaking out.
For any model worried about their career, the pressure to keep quiet is strong enough, she says, “And then you’ve got girls from eastern Europe who are responsible for supporting their families.”
Four in 10 young women sexually harassed in public spaces, survey finds | Life and style | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/may/25/four-10-women-sexually-harassed
A YouGov survey of 1,047 Londoners commissioned by End Violence Against Women Coalition (Evaw) found that 43% of women aged between 18 and 34 had experienced sexual harassment in public spaces in the last year.
Despite a growing intolerance of unwanted sexual attention, harassment was still very common and made women feel unsaf
Experience: I married my twin sister’s husband | Life and style | The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/06/i-married-twin-sisters-husband
Mention polygamy and people assume it’s all about sex, designed to suit men more than women. I’m aware that my life, and my religion, can sound bizarre to outsiders. I grew up in a polygamist family in Utah. My father was an orthodox Mormon; plural marriage is encouraged. As well as my birth mother, he had two other wives living nearby in separate houses.
It wasn’t until I was 10 that I realised how many people disapproved of the way we lived; once someone even spray-painted “Polygamist Bitches” on our drive.
Wine in Lebanon : the grapes of wrath | Life and style | The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/oct/02/wine-in-lebanon-bekaa-valley?newsfeed=true
“When we started planting the vineyard, we found a cluster bomb on the ground that had been dropped on the village in 1983. The army said it would take two weeks to get here, but I had 1,000 vines that had to be in the ground immediately or else they’d die. So with a couple of brave young men, we decided to plant the vines. Thank God nobody got hurt.”
This isn’t the kind of commentary you get on most wine tours. But this is a vineyard in Lebanon, not the Loire. On a visit to Chateau Belle-Vue, high above the heat and hustle of Beirut on the top of Mount Lebanon, its irrepressible owner Naji Boutros gives us not only a lesson in viticulture but a first-hand account of his country’s troubled history, too.
Quelques considérations stupides dans ce reportage (« religions intolérantes », Hezbollah « terroriste », charme désuet de l’époque coloniale), mais ça cause de vin, alors c’est bien.
#george_pelecanos crée un nouveau personnage récurrent :
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/books/the-cut-by-george-pelecanos-review.html
“The Cut” is the series kickoff that introduces Spero Lucas, a brand new George Pelecanos creation. Spero is a fit, athletic 29-year-old ex-Marine who roams Washington and its environs. He works as a freelance retriever of stolen property, taking a 40 percent cut on the value of anything he finds.
Tiens, c’est journée Pelecanos aujourd’hui :
Once upon a life : George Pelecanos
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/28/the-wire-george-pelecanos-washington-dc
My favourite time was just before dawn, driving to work on 16th Street in my gold Camaro, the windows down, smoking a Marlboro Menthol, listening to the glorious music coming loud from my Pioneer 8-track deck and speakers: Springsteen’s Born to Run, Mayfield’s Super Fly, Al Green’s Call Me, Bowie’s Station to Station. The tunes made movies in my head and jacked up my imagination. I had a crazy idea that I might write stories some day, perhaps make films.
Alors allons-y pour Superfly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cmo6MRYf5g
Addicted to #cute? | Life and style | The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/12/addicted-to-cute-eva-wiseman
In Vanity Fair two years ago, professor of evolution Marina Cords explained that we can’t help feeling drawn to these creatures that are so cute you want to take their little paws in your mouth and gnaw on them (that’s not just me, OK: I’ve done research). In the 1940s, ethologist Konrad Lorenz proposed, correctly, that we instinctively want to nurture any creature that has a cute appearance.
#Porn made for #women, by women | Life and style | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/mar/22/porn-women
These films don’t include horny schoolgirls, naughty nurses, nymphomaniac nannies or desperate housewives. Nor do they include Mafiosi, multimillionaires drinking cognac, pimps, drug dealers or super-sized sex machines. Because these women, as filmmakers and consumers, place themselves far away from mainstream porn.
Japanese #minimalism set to reshape #fashion once again | Life and style | The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/07/japanese-minimalism-fashion-design
“"The current recession is pivotal to this revival," says Andrew Groves, director of the fashion design degree course at the University of Westminster. "It’s a fundamental realignment of fashion’s core values, and a reaction to wearing short, sexy and symmetrical clothing. In times of recession, skirts lengthen."”
Amelia Hill on why having girls makes fathers more leftwing | Life and style | The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/24/daughter-father-political-influence-leftwing
#politique #social
