Entries Tagged 'in the news' ↓

70,000 Australians are reported victims of alcohol related assaults every year
24,000 women are victims of alcohol related domestic violence assaults
20,000 children are victims of alcohol-related child abuse

The Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AER Foundation) recently commissioned a new report The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others, which has just been published.

The AER is a unique, independent, not-for-profit organisation with a goal to change the way we drink.

The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others report was carried out by the AER Centre for Alcohol Policy Research in Melbourne. It offers an insight into how individual acts of alcohol misuse affect both families and communities.

Young Australians bear the brunt of the negative effects of drinking by others, with young women suffering the most when a person they were in a relationship with misused alcohol.

According to The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others report, young people aged 18-29 years were three times more likely to be affected by the drinking of someone they knew compared with older people and they were also twice as likely to be affected by strangers.

AER Foundation Director Professor Ian Webster said: “We often talk about young people as being part of the problem when it comes to alcohol-related harms. But we now know that they are one of the most vulnerable groups in our community when it comes to the impact of others’ drinking.”

He added “Much more needs to be done to support our young people, particularly young women, to prevent them from being negatively affected by our current problematic drinking culture.”

As part of the report, the Alcohol’s Harm to Others survey* also found that young people aged 18-29 years were more likely to experience harm from the drinking of strangers by:
• Being forced or pressured into sexual activity
• Being physically abused
• Encountering trouble or noise related to a licensed venue
• Having to avoid places where drinkers are known to hang out
• Being involved in a traffic accident
• Being verbally abused and threatened
• Getting into a serious argument
• Feeling unsafe in a public place and public transport
• Having their property or personal belongings damaged

Nearly 75% of both men and women aged 18-29 years who had been negatively affected in the last year by the drinking of a family member or friend said they also had to spend time looking after that person as a result of their drinking (cleaning up after them, driving them somewhere, caring for them or their children).

The survey found that 46% of young women who lived with a drinker would need to care for that person as a result of their drinking habits. They were also likely to experience verbal abuse from that person, which could also lead to cases of domestic violence.

The 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey found that younger men were more likely than women to experience verbal and physical abuse, while both younger and older women were more likely to be put in fear by someone affected by alcohol.

“We need to be asking what we can do to ensure that the whole community is protected from these harms. Now more than ever alcohol policy development is supported by a sound evidence base that shows which strategies are effective in reducing alcohol-related harms.” said Professor Webster.

He concluded “Significant policy reform is required in alcohol taxation, advertising and sponsorship restrictions, and limiting the availability of alcohol to protect young people.”

The report found the hidden cost of harms caused by someone else’s drinking brings the total economic impact of alcohol misuse in Australia to $36 billion annually, more than double previous estimates.

*Alcohol’s Harm to Others is a national survey completed in 2008 of more than 2,600 Australians aged 18 years or older conducted by Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha
Source: Alcohol Education & Rehabilitation Foundation

The International Year of Youth is an opportunity to give young people a say in the world around them and how it is being shaped. This is reflected in the theme “Our Year, Our Voice”.

The 2010 International Youth Day celebrated on 12 August also marked the launch of the International Year of Youth. The theme for International Youth Day was ‘Dialogue and Mutual Understanding’, and reflected the value of dialogue among youth from different cultures as well as among different generations.

International Youth Day was celebrated at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York where they also launched the International Year of Youth with an event seen as a celebration of young peoples’ energy, imagination and initiatives. The UN recognised their important contributions to enhancing peace and development and saw the event is an opportunity for both the international community and the UN system to show their ongoing commitment to young people.

The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon said “Youth should be given a chance to take an active part in the decision-making of local, national and global levels.”

Key objectives for the International Year of Youth include:

• Increased commitment and investment in youth
• Increased youth participation and partnerships, and
• Increased intercultural understanding among youth.

It is hoped that schools and youth organisations throughout the world will use this year as an opportunity to guide activities with young people that are related to youth and their issues.

Some of the suggestions for activities include:
Educational radio show - Contact popular local/national radio stations to request a slot to have a discussion with distinguished individuals and youth.
Organize a public meeting or debate - to discuss young people’s contributions to global issues.
Initiate round table discussions – among adults and young people to promote intergenerational understanding.
Organize a youth forum – to exchange ideas and discuss cultural backgrounds in order to help young people accept others and popularize a culture of non-violence.
Organize a concert – to promote International Youth Day and the launch of the Year. Invite your local musicians and combine it with a panel discussion or invite a politician or policy maker to hold the key note speech.
Create an “info point” – about youth-related issues in the centre of town/village, at high schools, or at university centres.
Organize an exhibition – get permission to use a public space for an arts exhibit, which showcases the challenges of young people today or how young people are contributing to development.  Try to involve young people in the domains of culture, arts and music, to raise awareness on youth-related issues.
Write to your Minister of Youth – to inform him or her about the challenges young people face in their daily lives and to suggest solutions.

The International Year of Youth website has lots of information and material to support any ideas and activities. To use the logo for your event, read the guidelines for the logo and fill out the liability waiver form available for download on the site and check the International Year of Youth website for regular updates.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha
Source: International Year of Youth

We read the story – about an 11 year old girl in the US, Jessi Slaughter, who received a tirade of threats after posting a video of herself on YouTube.

We saw the pictures – the freeze frame of what looked like a traumatised child in her bedroom in floods of tears.
 
On the surface it looked like she was the victim of yet another case of cyber-bullying led by a group of ‘trollers’ – people who use the internet to deliberately provoke reactions by baiting their victims.

“How can we let this happen to an innocent young child?” we all said!

Jessi’s post is at Watch Haters… Piercing… StickyDrama =D here see all 4 minutes and 36 seconds of her rant – but be warned despite the fact Jessi is only 11 years old, the language is extremely graphic.

She has an attitude which is way beyond her years and completely defies logic or a sense of reality. She tells her ‘haters’ to “suck her nonexistent p…s. Suck it and get AIDS and die,” and ends her video post with “it’s a big f*** to all those haters, OK”.

It seems that her actions invited negative attention and provoked a backlash. Perhaps she was not aware that posting a video, filled with expletives, onto the internet would create such commotion. It reinforces the importance of parental supervision regarding teenage activities on the net, it also highlights the need for education about the harmful effects of new media in school as well.

Leading adolescent psychologist, Generation Next speaker and author of “Real Wired Child” Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, points out that “parents need to understand that there are potential dangers in life not just in the technology but also in young people’s inability to always predict the consequences of their actions.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Public Education and Media Education states that “the American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes that exposure to mass media (i.e., television, movies, video and computer games, the Internet, music lyrics and videos, newspapers, magazines, books, advertising, etc) presents both health risks and benefits for children and adolescents.”

They feel that educating both young people and parents is very important and that “media education has the potential to reduce the harmful effects of media. By understanding and supporting media education, pediatricians can play an important role in reducing the risk of exposure to mass media for children and adolescents.” (American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Public Education. Media Education. Pediatrics. 1999;104:341–3).       

Her behaviour seemed aggressive and quite bizarre; being under the impression that she was some kind of celebrity with fans.

“You hater bitches, you’re just jealous of me because I’m more pretty than you. More people like me, I have more fans, yeh and all that shit” I’m perfect and you’re not. No one can be this pretty with no make-up on… Just stop hating on me. I’m just a normal girl who’s perfect in every way.” 

So where were her parents in all this and why were they not aware of their daughter’s behaviour? Her mother said she doesn’t use the computer and hasn’t seen the clip, while her father added to the furore by posting a rant of his own.

Dr Helen McGrath – a contributor to the Commonwealth Government’s Cyber-safety Joint Committee commented that it was unrealistic to expect parents to keep an eye on their children 24/7 and that the burden lay with schools to give young people the tools to look after themselves.

“It really comes back down to making sure they understand what they’re getting into,” she said.

However Professor Matt Warren, the head of Deakin University’s School of Information Systems said a “child isn’t ethically aware of what they’re doing,” they are too young to understand the implications of what they are “getting into”.

He added “parents will be concerned about their child going out all hours, but they don’t care about them staying on the internet all hours.”

If ever parents needed a reason to censor their children’s internet activities, Jessi Slaughter is it. 

Cyber bullying is a real concern and for more information you can access either:

Cybersmart   or  Cybersafetysolutions

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.
Source: news.com

Both the medical and teaching professions are learning more about the damaging effects of ‘sexting’ and cyber bullying. They are also learning how to deal with the impact that new technologies are having on teenagers. 

Leading experts including Cyber safety expert Susan McLean, adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg and medical professional Dr Ramesh Manocha have come together for a series of seminars being held all around Australia.

These Seminars, organised by HealthEd, bring teachers and doctors up to speed on the rapidly changing ‘online’ world that teenagers are living in. The seminars highlight the dangers of emerging new technologies and how they are harming our teenagers on a physical mental, emotional and spiritual level. In fact all aspects of young people’s well being are under attack.

Doctors and health professionals are attending The Mental Health & Wellbeing of Young People seminars which focus on the internet’s potential effect on mental health among young people, and the harmful effect cyber bullying is having on teenagers including, depression, addiction and suicide.

Dr Ramesh Manocha said “cyber bullying is emerging as the main issue in schools at the moment, and the evidence clearly indicates that it is not only an unpleasant experience but in fact poses a risk the mental health and wellbeing of the victim”.

“It’s a clear example of how technology in the hands of those without the necessary maturity and understanding can become an unchecked, destructive force. We urgently need to educate our young people about how to use the internet positively while avoiding its many pitfalls” he added.

Dr Manocha said there was an ignorance in medical circles about these new teen troubles “most GPs don’t know enough to even ask the questions of young people, whether they are being exposed to the negative impacts of the internet”.

Increasingly teenagers are seeking the help of GPs and psychologists after becoming victims of cyber bullying. Ms McLean pointed out that doctors needed to understand online issues in order best treat their patients.

“You don’t want doctors to talk about Mybook and FaceSpace (instead of MySpace and Facebook),” she said.

Teachers and social workers are attending Generation Next Public Seminars which offer anyone involved in working with young people the opportunity to hear leading experts discuss the dangers of the internet and its ‘antisocial’ uses by our young people.

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, an adolescent psychologist and author of Real Wired Child: What parents need to know about kids online said “schools need to help young people develop their moral compass as they stroll through the back alleys of ‘Cyberia’. While most adults can relate to schoolyard bullying, they have no context for understanding how the behaviour manifests itself in the virtual world”.

Former Senior Constable with the Victorian police and Cyber Safety expert Susan McLean said “previously schools did not become involved in things that occurred ‘out of hours.’ It was not their business or concern, however with cyber bullying, harassment and sexting, where the parties involved are often from within the same school or neighbouring schools, the problem is firmly thrust into the hands of the school accompanied by the often unrealistic expectations from parents, that they ‘solve’ the problem”.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Source: HealthEd

A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald by columnist Miranda Devine was a hard read; the very subject matter curdled the stomach and made the insides squirm in an effort to escape it.

The subject matter was paedophiles and how easily they gain both the trust of parents and access to the innocent children that become their victims.

The other disturbing aspect of the article lay in the fact that society doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge and address the horrors of child abuse in order to help protect the next generation, the innocent children, who are falling victim to an sexual, physical, mental and emotional abuse.

As Miranda points out, ‘how did we arrive at a circumstance in which a 56-year-old man is convicted in the NSW District Court this week of sexually abusing eight children aged from 12 months to 14 years, videotaping thousands of unspeakable crimes, and barely a comment is made?”

The trial in question was that of David Shane Whitby whose reign of terror lasted more than a decade, in which time he video-taped his despicable acts against innocent children. In one video he allegedly said “I love to molest children …. I am a child molester and transvestite … I have molested so many children”.

The list of charges read like an ‘R’ rated horror story and included 73 counts of sexual intercourse with a child aged between 10 and 14 years old. It is small consolation that he will be sentenced in September.

A police officer who works in child protection said ”they were poor single mothers doing it tough and they were conned by a predator … Whitby will be remembered as the worst paedophile in Australia’s history, in terms of number of victims, number of crimes and the extremely sick nature of the crimes … No one in child protection has ever seen anything like this.”

Traditionally the ‘family’ has formed the threads of our social fabric and yet because of changes in society during the last 40 years the social fabric that holds our community together is being ripped apart by society itself.

Gone are the days when the family was made up of a working father and a stay at home mother. Couples are marrying later and having fewer families. Today the term ‘family’ can be applied to step-parents, single parents, blended families, defacto relationships and same sex parents.

In essence change is good and these new lifestyle choices are merely a response to the world we now live in, but are they also unwittingly undermining the strength of the ‘family’ on which our society is built?

In the UK Sir Paul Coleridge, a Family Court judge, caused controversy last year when he addressed the Family Holiday Association and suggested that the state of marriage should be upheld and that those who destroy family life should be held accountable.

He described what he sees in court as a ”never-ending carnival of human misery … I have witnessed the damage done [to children] by the endless game of ‘musical relationships’, or ‘pass the partner’, in which a significant portion of the population is engaged”.

Sir Coleridge’s views might be considered old fashioned by some, but he had a point when he said “surely the test of any social change is whether it enhances people’s lives or makes them more miserable. And this is where I take issue with the modern view of the family. If it is so successful, why are the statistics for separation so large?”.
 
“More significantly, why are the family courts overwhelmed with cases involving damaged, miserable or disturbed children? How do other children, caught up in less serious separations, really feel? Do they relish the endless changes of partner, or adapting to a new step-parent and step-siblings?” he added.

So the question remains; how can our children be protected in a world where predators can easily enter their lives because of the breakdown in family values? If their parents cannot protect them, then who can?

How, we might ask ourselves, can a man like Whitby get so close to these vulnerable children?  The answer is ‘easily’ when you look at the recent case of a father who was awarded custody of his daughter, despite the fact that he has a known history of heroin addiction and sex offences.

He was given custody simply because the mother was even less able to protect and take care of her daughter than he was, as she had a string of shoplifting, drug and prostitution related convictions to her name.

The magistrate reasoned that “the father provides calmer parenting with more clearly set boundaries than the mother does,” adding that “a history of inadequate supervision combined with heroin and marijuana use create a serious concern that (the girl) may be neglected by her mother”.

Joe Tucci of The Australian childhood Foundation said “children shouldn’t ever be placed in a situation where the rights of the parents . . . override their right to protection,” he said.

“The decision should be about whether a child is safe or not, not which parent is the better to look after them.

As Miranda Devine points out “it is the community’s responsibility to rebuild social norms destroyed through the social revolution of the past 40 years.”

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald. Speech by Sir Paul Coleridge.

140 million women and children worldwide have suffered female genital cutting*

By 1997 the whole of Australia had outlawed female circumcision making it illegal to perform “any medical or surgical procedure or mutilation of the vagina or clitoris of any person” for reasons of “culture, religion, custom or practice”.

However with the growing number of people arriving from countries such as Africa, Asia and the Middle East and combined religious and cultural traditions, there has been a rise in the number of illegal female genital cutting.

“This is child abuse, it doesn’t matter whether it is cultural or not, it is against the law and there is one law for all Australians,” Pru Goward, former Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Commissioner said.

“There is anecdotal evidence that it is occurring… and when I said to them (doctors) why aren’t they reporting them it was because they feel it wouldn’t stand up in court. Doctors are anxious about taking on the family because the family will often just say the ‘young girl slipped on some glass’” she said.

Even though in Australia this practice is considered by many to be a form of genital mutilation, The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) are willing to discuss the possibility of introducing “ritual nicks”.

In June the RANZCOG will discuss this matter at their Women’s Health meeting.

RANZCOG secretary Gino Pecoraro said: “If a nick could meet the cultural needs of a particular woman, then it might save her from going through what can really be drastic surgery. But we need to make sure we do not legitimise the ritualistic maiming of children.”

“It can progress to an extreme form that actually removes the clitoris and the labia and sews the opening of the vagina closed,” Dr Peccararo said.

“No-one is condoning the practice. No-one is trying to legitimise the practice. They are trying to look at a way to minimise the harm,” he said.

The issue of female cutting has polarized the community; some in the medical world feel that if a minor form of circumcism were legally allowed then it would protect girls from being subjected to the procedure by people without a formal medical background and in unsanitary conditions.

Others like Ms Goward firmly believe that ‘female nicking’ of any kind is female mutilation and abuse and under no circumstances should be allowed in any form, no matter how ‘mild’.

Ms Goward said “the first thing that should happen is that the Federal Government, which is after all responsible for our immigration program, launches a huge public education campaign particularly in those communities and particularly when it is processing people for migration to Australia”.

“If you don’t start education, if you don’t start prosecuting – because we all know anecdotally that these children are turning up in hospitals with ruptured bladders and urethra – that this will continue,” she said.

“But the answer is not to allow a modified form of it if you haven’t tried stopping it by public education and awareness and prosecution.”

Elizabeth Broderick, Sex Discrimination Commissioner for the Australian Human Rights Commission also agreed “I disagree with the suggestion by the RANZCOG that we should, for any reason, entertain a practice of “ritual nicks” in a sterile environment.

“In my opinion female genital mutilation or female circumcision, whatever you want to call it, is violence against women, often against children and young women.”

Even within the RANZCOG there is disagreement with Digby Ngan Kee, of Palmerston North, Vice President of RANZCOG and a member of it’s women’s health committee saying that Dr Pecoraro’s comments were not the official position of the college.  He added “We remain opposed to female genital mutilation”.

The RANZCOG President, Dr Ted Weaver has confirmed “The College is not considering any support for this procedure on baby girls in Australia, and the assumption that the College is going to change its position on female genital mutilation is wrong. The College remains opposed to all forms of female genital mutilation”.

* according to the World Health Organisation.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.
Source: ABC News. The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

For some time now experts have been warning about the dangers of social network sites and how some teenagers are being manipulated into situations they cannot handle by the people they are chatting to. Studies show that teenagers are often happy to provide their personal information to complete strangers.

Many adolescents feel in control of the situation when they are on the net; they can log on and off when they want, answer a question in their own time and say things they wouldn’t say in a face to face situation. The internet seems safe because it is anonymous, removed from reality and there is no emotional investment.

Unfortunately, Sydney teenager Nona Belomesoff, found out that making new friends on the social networking site Facebook is anything but safe. She was allegedly lured to her death by a man who fabricated his Facebook profile. Claiming to work for WIRES, Christopher James Dannevig then invited her to an overnight camp to study wildlife.

Mr Belmosesoff (Nona’s brother) said ”he said he worked there and he could get her a job, she loved animals and saw this as an opportunity to follow her dream.” Her in experience of real life and a misplaced trust in the internet led her to believe the alleged words of Dannevig.

Author and Generation Next speaker Maggie Hamilton says “girls may not realise they are being carefully groomed to do things they had no intention of doing when their cyber relationship began”.

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally agreed “No matter what our age … we should be careful of the people who we meet online and not assume that they are who they represent themselves to be.”

Unfortunately many young people still seem unaware of the predators that trawl the internet looking for vulnerable teenagers who have not yet had enough experience in the world to realise the dangers of befriending people over the internet.

Also many people, teenagers and parents alike, are not aware of the changed privacy settings on Facebook which automatically publishes previously private information and has now made formerly default private settings public. Users now have to change 50 different settings to stop the site from sharing private information with third parties. They have to consciously choose not to accept the new “Instant personalisation” feature.

Social media strategist Laurel Papworth said” Sometimes people see the message [about the new settings] on their screen, and they click OK without fully understanding that the message Facebook told them about changing their settings … to these new default settings.”

It is important for parents and guardians to be aware of their teenagers activities on the internet and keep the lines of communication open, Papworth says “the first thing parents should say is, ‘I’m not going to take your Facebook access away. I want you to know that if you see anything on Facebook that you don’t like or you are worried about or anybody contacts you or anything, I want you to come and talk to me about it.’

In an unparalleled move, Police in Australia have urged users to remove photos of themselves from their profiles. Det Supt Peter Crawford of Taskforce Argos, the unit which hunts online predators, said “I don’t think kids need to have a profile photograph on the internet”.

Facebook, via their head offices in the USA, issued a statement saying “This case serves as a painful reminder that all Internet users must use extreme caution when contacted over the Internet by people they do not know.”

“We echo the advice of the Police, who urge people not to meet anyone they have been contacted by online unless they know for certain who they are, as there are unscrupulous people in the world with malevolent agendas,” the statement concluded.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha

The World Health Organisation (WHO) clearly states that the advertising of tobacco on social networking websites by employees promoting the product is prohibited. However there have been a growing number of employees who have taken to the likes of Facebook and are actively promoting the brands their company produces.

This is all the more shocking when you realise that these employees are from countries that have ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which bans all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

In Australia Simon Chapman, professor, School of Public Health, University of Sydney and  Becky Freeman, research officer, School of Public Health, University of Sydney carried out a study “The cancer emperor’s new clothes: Australia’s historic legislation for plain tobacco packaging” which was recently published in the British Medical Journal. The study found that certain tobacco companies are side stepping the international conventions against cigarette advertising by using social networking sites.

In a statement British American Tobacco(BAT) Australia’s managing director, David Crow, said: ”It’s absolutely not our policy to use social networking sites such as Facebook to promote our tobacco product brands. To do so could breach local advertising laws”.

“Our rules mean that employees should not post branded material on social networking sites, blog sites, chat forums or other ‘user-generated content’ sites such as YouTube – whatever the intention in posting the material may be” he added.

However, the study found more than 500 networks for BAT employees, but noted there was no way of knowing if these were a form of promotion. The next most common type of group was for BAT cigarette brands. ”Twenty-six BAT cigarette brand groups were found as part of the search and of these, five had members who were part of the BAT network” the study said.

The article’s lead researcher, Becky Freeman, said the Facebook pages appeared to break not only domestic laws against cigarette advertising but Australian commitments to the World Health Organisation treaty against the practice. “The breach needs to be addressed”, say Becky Freeman.

This comes at a time when Australia is the first country in the world to mandate plain packaging of cigarettes as part of a push towards new tobacco control measures. The plain packaging will be introduced by mid 2012 and will drastically restrict the use of brand imagery and promotional text currently used by tobacco companies.

Writer Helen Splarn.  Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Source: British Medical Journal

65% of Australian women are a size 14-16

The 15th annual Australian Fashion week has come to a close for yet another year. Last year many designers embraced “body diversity” by using plus size models.

Cynics like Garance Dore feel this was just a ‘gimmick’ used by the fashion houses to gain publicity and attract new clients.

“I think it’s too much and almost naive of the fashion industry, because it would be nice in a few years that the idea of different body shapes is normal, but right now it’s not quite there yet,” the 35-year-old French illustrator said.

It was disapointing that this year Australian designers returned to the “thin is beautiful” stereotype, with designers like Alex Perry saying “are you going to use thin girls? yeh we are! Tall thin and beautiful and that is, I make no apologies for the fact that - me personally - that’s what I like to see on the catwalk”. 

In old fashioned terms this comment could be seen as ’chauvinistic”, at the very least it seems very inappropriate at a time when research has shown that promoting these kind of images on the catwalk and in magazines only reinforces unrealistic images of body types to impressionble teenagers and young women. It places an unneccesary pressure on them to conform to the so called ‘norms’ in fashion.

However the use of plus size models on the catwalk raises the very serious question of how women are portrayed in the media and how the members of the public accept those images.

In an attempt to show that bigger models can be just as “beautiful”  BGM Models demonstrated outside Australian fashion week. All the plus size models looked gorgeous and healthy and all looked more like the size and shape of Australian women everywhere.

In the print media there has been a shift of late towards plus size models being featured in major mainstream fashion and lifestyle magazines (we are talking size 12 here – so they are hardly large ladies – rather the size of the average woman in the street).

In January’s Marie Claire magazine they ran the story ‘ You Tell Us’ about what mainstream Australia find beautiful in a woman.  A size 12 model won 59% of the votes followed closely by a size 14 model and then Katie Lansell-Smith, a size 16 model.

Also for the first time ever a plus size model has graced the front cover of a woman’s fitness magazine. Fernwood gyms, long a leader in helping women achieve realistic used a plus size model for their cover of Fernwood.

In January Women’s Weekly ran a 15 page spread using plus size models and the April issue of French Elle featured plus-size model Tara Lynn on their cover and included a 20 page editorial featuring her in luxury labels. This follows on from V magazine’s ‘size’ issue that also featured Tara Lynn alongside plus-size supermodel Crystal Renn.

More recently AAP ran an online poll which asked: Should the fashion industry showcase a variety of physiques including plus-size and older models?  the response was an overwhelming  83% in favour.

The views held by Perry and Dore who said that ”it’s not such a good thing to show plus-size because it’s not really physically healthy and not always flattering to fashion,” are fast becoming outdated and are harmful to the growing movement which is seeing a backlash in the way women are portrayed (especially the sexualisation of young girls through the media and the way they are frequently represented in sexually provocative setting with the emphasise that skinny is sexy).

Veteran Australian fashion designer Leona Edmiston has built her successful business around dresses cut for a feminine shape. At the launch of her Spring/Summer 2010/11 collection she  welcomed the return of the curvier silhouette, “I think naturally a lot of us are curvy, and so why fight it?” Edmiston said.

She added, “we have to embrace it and celebrate it, and curves are beautiful and we can look so beautiful emphasising them, so there’s no reason to hide them.”

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Source: Bella models. BGM Models

At first glance it would seem that choosing Video Hits as a Media Partner for the recently held Australian National Youth Week made perfect sense, all teenagers are into music of some sort. Music crosses the great divide and is accessible to everyone; it can communicate on a level without barriers.

But when we see the latest music clip from American singer Kiely Williams “Spectacular” (The Sex was Spectacular) then the question must be asked: ‘Should Video Hits have been a Media Partner of National Youth Week?’ when it has been clearly shown that some music videos can depict the sexualisation of young people and have a deleterious effect on body image and self esteem, leading to increased risk of eating disorders.

Certain lyrics and imagery also perpetuate the myth that violence, sex, love and rape are all the same thing, where consent is irrelevant and aggression acceptable.

This latest offering by Kiely Williams glorifies a one night stand where rape is questionable. The lyrics are crude and confronting. She doesn’t even know the man’s name or if he used a ”rubber”. In the song being so drunk that you can’t remember anything seems to be an achievement, or at the very least nothing out of the ordinary, as she puts it; ”I was face down, ass up, clothes off, broke off, dozed off”.

The images in the video clip depict nudity and outfits that leave little to the imagination, to say nothing of the graphic dance moves. A video clip like this only perpetuates the rape myth that says it is OK because the girl is too drunk to say ‘no’.

A new book to be published in July by sociologist Anastasia Powell of La Trobe University, Victoria called “Sex, Power and Consent: Youth Culture and the Unwritten Rules” draws on the experiences of 117 young people as they talk about youth sex within popular culture, love, sex, relationships and agreeing consent. She develops a gripping context for understanding the ‘unwritten rules’ and the gendered power relations in which sexual negotiations take place.

Powell says the sexualisation or pornification of society – the preponderance of sexualised imagery in media, music and other popular culture – has done little to empower young women.

”Some things have improved in terms of women’s equality but we’re still hanging on to a whole range of gender norms; ideas about men, women and sex that still place young women in situations when they experience pressured or unwanted sex and sexual assault,” Dr Powell said.

Cyber safety expert and Generation Next Seminar speaker, Susan McLean says “sexting – the sending of naked images, almost always of young women, by mobile phone – and other inappropriate sexual behaviour is widespread in Australian schools. Boys and girls, but predominantly girls, are sharing pictures for no other reason than they can.”

McLean said that once the pictures – or in some cases videos – were out in cyberspace they were almost impossible to remove.

A national survey released on 19 April, “Changing Cultures Changing Attitudes” showed that:
• 13% of people still agree that women ‘often say no when they mean yes’
• 16% agree that a woman ‘is partly responsible if she is raped when drunk or drug-affected’
• 7% agreed ”a man is less responsible for rape if he is drunk or affected by drugs at the time”, and
• 34% of people still believe that ‘rape results from men being unable to control their need for sex’.

Minister Plibersek said the Rudd Government is spending $17 million on a social marketing campaign to promote respectful relationships among young people.

So, given the type of material Video Hits is airing, it is probable that the answer to the question : ‘Should Video Hits have been a Media Partner of National Youth Week?’ is a resounding “NO” – this is not the type of message we want to send to our youth during National Youth Week or at any other time.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

SOURCE: Anastasia Powell of La Trobe University, Victoria – “Sex, Power and Consent: Youth Culture and the Unwritten Rules”
VicHealth – “Changing Cultures Changing Attitudes A National Survey on Community Attitudes To Violence against Women”