anna spies

“ And this at a time when, I’d argue, we need the levelling power of the dancefloor more than ever. The fact is, we currently live in a society which is far more divided along lines of gender, sexuality, race, wealth and class than most people are willing to admit. We have the whitest, richest, most male-dominated cabinet we’ve had in years. And some large-scale sleight of hand gives comedians license to openly mock weaker members of society from behind a peeling veneer of irony. Somehow, the assumption that prejudice no longer exists, that we live in a near-mythically egalitarian society, has let that very prejudice sneak in through the back door - aided by the comfortable anonymity of online debate.

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“ Gavin de Becker is an author who has written several books about the nature of fear. In his book The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence, he noted that the outcome a woman feared most from any romantic encounter was rape and death. I know it must be really hard on you, kiddo. You’re going to go through life fearing that, in a worst-case scenario, you could be sexually assaulted and murdered by a member of the opposite sex. Sure, it’s likely that something that terrible will never come to pass (god forbid! I feel sick even talking about it!), but there are no guarantees. In fact, some men (and presumably some women writing for Gizmodo Australia) will tell you to avoid drinking too much or wearing sexy clothes in order to spare yourself such a dark outcome. Imagine that! Hinting that it’d be your fault. It’s tough being a girl, huh? Now, pumpkin, pretend you’re a man. What’s your greatest fear in a romantic situation? Give up? More than anything, we fear being laughed at and made to feel humiliated by the opposite sex.

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