h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>Not wishing to get into any in depth discussion on muslim attitudes to women but one thing about the burka is that it requires you to concentrate on the person not the body.<<

Yeah but that may not work in their favour: I concentrate on their rudeness.

Ah, HI, but whose rudeness?
The women who wear it or the men (religion?) who require the wearing thereof?

Speaking of male modesty...what about running around with no shirt on?

I remember this incident from 1980:

It was high summer in the Carpathians, in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. An American student of my acquaintance thought it was too hot. He unbutton his shirt on a public street. An elderly lady walked up to him and told him, 'We don't do that here.' He was sort of surprised. But my Romanian professor wouldn't even take off his suit jacket in an outdoor restaurant - and it was really steamy weather.

In the mid-80s, the 'Athens News', an English-language publication, published 'daily shame photos of tourists - male and female - in shorts in Syntagma Square. The rest of tut-tutted. Nobody in Greece at that time would have worn such gear in the city centre. It was rude.

My point being that ideas of public modesty are relative, and should be respected. Which is not to say that there's not something wrong with guys who actually get hot and bothered by ladies with uncovered hair. I think their personal thermostats need adjusting.

I wish it was just about thermostats Dmitri and being well ignorant and rude

but in the scheme of things it isn't is it?

The boys in shorts and the girls in shorts, which ones deserved it, you know walking around like that?

Who is doing the slut walk now?

While both genders would be shamed in a paper for not being decent and respectful, possibly equally and all harmless enough taking the spiss out of teh tourists

don't have to dig much deeper to see that it isn't

and I know I am not telling you anything you don't know

In the interests of this thread I perused the magazine shelf in the supermarket

It seemed a little jumbled up.

So pre-schoolers magazines were on a shelf that I would struggle to reach but there was at least no lurid knitting patterns on display. I don't know if that was some attempt to prevent them being in a child's eye line because of the nagging that might ensue but there plenty of other tempting titles with freebies that would garner interest imo

On the lower shelves there were magazines aimed at primary age

It was the pre-teen and early teen section clearly magazines that more aimed at girls that got my got my goat right next to numerous celeb magazines

Then there was a section of interest magazines by that I mean bikes, mens health, sailing, sci-fi etc

The lads mags as we are calling them were on the top shelf right in the corner, in a box you could see the titles not the covers and the box was clearly marked with the titles they contained

The gender divisions seemed ick to me, sci-fi and computer gaming a male interest, these were next to the lads section and knitting and baking stuff is female interest these were up the other end to the left of the childrens magazines

I would put the interests and hobbies sections together

Now I am ing about how to best organise the whole sction and will put forward my suggestions to the manager

Again this isn't about banning, I s'pose that putting the 'lads mags' in a box is a sort of censoring but it isn't making it inaccessible

I think though it is reasonable enough to ask a store to consider their customers opinions and perhaps act them. So I will give it go.

It is not about taking anything off the shelves just re-arranging them in a different way

I also feel that I owe you and apology Dmitri

Those was angsty replies to a perfectly reasonable post.

I am sorry.

If I can explain (not excuse) but when I was travelling in the early 90's I worked in some touristy places. Where shorts and t-shirts were acceptable wear

I got a fair amount of unwanted and in some instances very untoward attention shall we say because of the prevailing attitude of locals and tourist was all young women in shorts and t-shirts having had a couple of drinks watching the sun go down or just generally people watching were of course not just there for the sun, sea and in this case employment, obviously sex was also on *everyone's* agenda and a polite no thanks was just playing hard to get

off topic but wanted to make a public apology so to speak

Sorry again

Oh, no problem.

I don't know how it was where you were, but in Athens, a young woman from Australia wrote a very funny little book making mock of the local would-be Lotharios. She called it 'Excuse Me, Miss, Have You Seen the Acropolis?'

The joke being, of course, that's it's kind of hard NOT to see the Acropolis.

, rings true

and thank you

One thing I've noticed is that "women's magazines" always have women on the cover, and are all about selling a certain body type to the reader. (In other words, the magazine makes its money by feeding on its readers' insecurities.) However, "girls' magazines" usually have guys on the cover, and are all about perving on hot male celebrities. Again, it's pushing a certain body type, and is very much gender normative and all sorts of isms, but it seems psychologically healthier than the ones for adult women.

I wonder how many adult women read the teen girl mags? They look like being far more fun.

TRiG.

I used to read them when my daughters bought them. But I wouldn't actually spend my own money on them.

Mol

When I lived in the UK my local newsagent was so careful about not offending his sensitive customers that he would place the copies of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' monthly magazine on the top shelf if it had a pair of on the front cover.

Victorians used to print pictures of the Stinkhorn mushroom upside down, supposedly to avoid offence.

Google it if you're unfamiliar with Phallaceae family.