It took a couple of Michio Kaku videos on youtube, a full night's rest, ranting to MS, JM, JK, SS, NP and other women, breakfast and a couple of ciggy breaks to finally calm down after watching "The Labyrinth of the Butterfly" last night. I was prepared for it because The Turtle told me about two years ago that the play (and the book that it was based on) totally dissed Michio Kaku.

Now, if you have any clue about me (or had at least traveled with me twice, or asked me about my favourite things in life), you would know that I would lose an arm to be Michio Kaku. And that I absolutely love his work.  I owe this man for bringing physics back to me, who has made me feel less of a Failed Physicist-Wannabe. This man is one of a handful of theoretical physicists who have de-mystified phsyics and quantum mechanics for regular human beings. He is one of the few scientists who actually take a stand against nuclear weapons and war. He is one of the even fewer physicists who write about women physicists and the lack of such women in the world of physics. This is a man who may not necessarily be gender-sensitive or feminist, but is not a sexist.

This is how I've always perceived Michio Kaku, so I was absolutely gutted when last night's play painted him as a sexist loser who designed "Molly" the highly-sexualised female robot straight out of sexist geek fantasy. First things first, Kaku is a theoretical physicist. His life's work is the M-Theory (one of the major strands of the Theory of Everything, whom he also calls "The Mother of All Theories"). He is not an applied physics person. I can't imagine him building a robot at all. I've heard about photos of him and the robot he invented, Molly, who was a mechanical Angelina Jolie of sorts. I have never seen that photo of Molly.

Secondly, here's a clarification of how Kaku wrote about Molly the robot: 2020 Vision (the 4th article on the page). I have to rely on the internet for actual quotes at the moment, I don't have my bookshelf with me (I haven't had it in over a month, in fact). I have read Kaku writing about Molly before, but she had never struck me as a highly-sexualised mechanic representation of the dirtiest male fantasies (of a subservient woman with big tits). It's been a while since I revisited "Visions", Kaku's book around the future of science and tech where he talks about Molly, but I've always thought that Molly was kind of like the voice in your head that reminds you of things and makes your life easier and safer. Not necessarily the sex-bot that was acted out in last night's play. I think our own discomfort at male girl-robot fantasies were assigned to last night's Molly, which resulted in Kaku being totally villified. Which is unfair.

Lastly, I've been thinking about last night's Molly and some of the points that were raised about a year ago when I was doing a gender evaluation training for a software localisation project.

So Nepal, 2007. We were talking about the fact that in text-to-speech software (which was particularly useful for illiterate communities), the male voice was much easier to use. It has to do with the differences in the decibel and frequency ranges of women's and men's voices. According to the geeks, in Asia, we did not have the skills and capacity to work with a female voice in text-to-speech software (the skills are available in the US, they said). This results in the absence of (literally) female voices in software that is localised in Asia.

We, the gender advocates in that meeting, said that it was important for women users (especially those who were dealing with their own fears of tech) to be able to hear voices in their software that they can relate to. Simply put, there must be a way to have female voices in the localised text-to-speech software.

So back to Cape Town 2008. If the premise is that having female voices in technology is empowering to women, why then do we have a problem with female-looking /-sounding robots? Wouldn't such an entity be empowering to women as well? Wouldn't such a creature be something that we can relate to as women (as opposed to a male robot)?

Or is the problem we have with Molly the fact that she was presented as a thing that did household work? That she had big boobs last night? That she was highly-sexualised?

Or is the problem because Michio Kaku is male and he was represented as having created her? Is this a problem even if nothing of Kaku's work point to his sexism?

Would Molly and Michio have been saved from ridicule and mockery if they had switched sexes?

Tags: activist stuff, awid08, awid2008, feminist rambling, geekery, pop culture, reviews of everything, tripping away, women and tech
coordinates: cape town
state of mind: grumpy
background noise: people buzzing at the FTX Hub

I'm procrastinating again. I have a few documents that need some work before I head out to hang out with friends in Malaysia next week. But I'm kinda stuck. So I checked the blog, which I haven't seen in over three weeks. And then I see this from angelicsmile:

Thank you for your opinion. If you read the stories provided by the Filipinas around the world, you will see the Filipina activist, the Filipina mail order bride, the Filipina working against domestic violence, the Filipina daughter, the foreigner hurt by his Filipina girlfriend, the Filipina mom, the Filipina daughter and so much more. We show hundreds of stories both positive and negative.

FilipinaImages.com is a collaborative effort of all the bloggers who believe that the The Filipina of the Future deserves a more empowered, diverse image online. Multiple, complex, and whole. " We are not out to change the Filipina perception but to balance the search engine results of Filipina websites. It's that simple.

I hope you take the time to read their stories.

Which is pretty cool. I generally blog for myself, and I don't really expect anyone other than my friends to comment. So receiving a stranger's comment, and a dissenting one at that, is good.

And the comment is fair enough.

I have to admit, when I wrote the The Filipina Paragon (Part 1), I was knee-jerk-reacting to a site that seemed to be trying so hard to improve the Filipina image -- with images that make me cringe. So I went back to the Filipina Images site to give it another go.

One of the things that are currently featured on the site were the WikiPilipinas Filipina Stories, a contest of one-shot blog entries on the modern Filipina. So I went to the winners of this contest as a starting point. Let it not be said that I am not willing to have my mind changed (ADHD kind of dictates that I do that at least once every thirty minutes, anyway). So here we go:

The winning entry was titled, The Filipina Doctor: Coming Full Circle, which expounds on the evolution of the Filipina healer from the pre-colonial babaylan to the Western doctor that she is now. It nods to ground-breaking Filipinas in the medical field. And it was a nice trip down the history of women in the medical field.

The entry the placed second was called, The Evolving Beauty of the Modern Filipina. The metaphor the blogger used was that of beauty products -- how beauty products have evolved from sabila to an entire fruit cocktail of products, and how that evolution was very much like that of  The Filipina (the modern Filipina is as well-developed as the current beauty products out in the market)... And the blogger also compared his effort to define the Filipina to a reader analysing a book., failing to realise that a woman is not the freakin' book, she's the freakin' author. Not objects or subjects, but creators of that so-called evolution... And don't get me started on how the history of the modern woman is compared to the history of beauty products... How the heck did that entry get second place?

The third place entry, the  Cyber Feminisation of Poverty: Mail Order Brides and the Image of the Filipina, should have won. The title was not a faked intellectual one. It actually cohesively looks at how the Internet has exacerbated the Mail Order Bride Dilemma (it sites sources and all that). It was well-written and the fact that the blogger didn't go all "We're Filipinas, we're so awesome" was pretty cool. It was the most intelligent one out of all of them.  My only problem with it was that the blogger posted pictures of women from mail order bride sites. What about their privacy, eh?

All in all, I was pretty pleased that the comment from angelicsmile prompted me to go back and read those blog entries.

But here's the thing. The objective of the Filipina Images site is to revamp the image of  The Filipina  from an exoticised  Mail Order Bride to that of one that is empowered and  not-a-hoe.  Good for them! But I still have an issue with who the subject of all of this is: Filipina Mail-Order Brides; Filipinas who go to these dating sites so they can bag a foreigner.

To me, it reeks of self-righteousness.
Let's all change the image of the Filipina into something more like us because we have careers and families and jobs and empowerment. Let's not let those Mail Order Brides ruin our image.

The whole thing speaks to a foreign audience.

Look! Filipinas are more than Mail Order Brides, we are empowered! Please change your minds about us!

I can't help but hear that underneath the pretty words.

I can't help but think that what this is doing is further alienating those women who think the Mail Order Bride thing is the only way out of their miserable lives. Further making them into objects of pity / scorn / analysis as we middle-class, empowered few sit in front of our machines and try to tell the world that we are not them.

_____

I'm not done. When I have free time, I will go back to that site and read some more.

But for now it's back to those concept briefs.

Tags: feminist rambling, life in manila, pop culture, women and tech
coordinates: at home
state of mind: blah
background noise: aircon humming

I seem to be on a roll here.

I blame being stuck in the middle of nowhere, in a place with no pool table. I blame running out of Bleach episodes to watch. I blame the fact that the internet is the only entertainment and distraction right now. I blame the low yellow lights at night here that don't allow me to go back to Briane Green and Fydor Dostoevsky...

Anyway.

I stumbled upon this online community and campaign: Filipina Images.

I don't know. I don't know... On one hand, I'm glad such a thing exists. I'm glad that these women have banded together to combat negative images of Filipinas online. So good on them for doing that...

But then I saw how they defined 'Filipina' and nearly hurled:

Tags: feminist rambling, pop culture, women and tech
coordinates: Sonya's Garden
state of mind: sleepy
background noise: people talking and wind chimes

Everyone's their own porn  producer / director / cameraman / lead actress these days.

The stories vary.

One story is of girl who gets her dead computer fixed and her files retrieved, which includes racy photos taken at a particular kinky moment between her and her lover. It's Jackpot Day for the pervy computer technicians, who not only view the photos, they put them up on the Web. She becomes a momentary object of fascination and fantasy.

Ditto, a girl who loses her cell phone that has the naked pics she took to MMS to her long-distance boyfriend. The bastard who gets her phone MMS's her photos to his friends and everyone on her contact list.

Another story is of a girl and her boyfriend. They break up. He wants revenge. So he releases their sex videos to their common friends.

The degrees of separation of the girls involved has significantly decreased in the last year. From last year's overheard conversation at a restaurant, to a friend of an acquaintance, to a friend of a friend, to a girl who sometimes parties at my place. It's becoming a regular story -- just another story of a girl who inadvertently became a porn star.

On one hand, I'm all for people being able to make their own porn. With video-enabled cellphones becoming more and more affordable, being one's own porn producer / director / cameraman / lead actress is becoming more and more possible, Besides, if taking a video during sex makes it more exciting, yay! I'm all for better sex for everyone.

And that ambitious little Bolshevik in my head hopes that this would be key in toppling huge Porn Corporations. Who would want porn films of people that are so hard to relate to when you can watch yourself? I know, the Bolshevik is realistic enough to know that's a pipe dream. But it's a nice dream.

What bugs me though is how these private photos and videos are distributed. Often, it's without the consent of the female subject. Her privacy is violated and more often than not, there's a fair bit amount of shame  and blame thrown her way. It's like she's being punished for having great sex.

I reckon there should be a way to avoid all that hassle without giving up all that fun. It would be wonderful if the world doesn't have any malicious lovers or pervy computer technicians. Good luck waiting for that to happen.

And since I'm a nerd, I think the solution has to do with how to use tech securely in your DIY porn:

• After taking a photo or video on your mobile phone, move the file somewhere else (like a portable hard drive or your computer) and delete it from your phone.
• If you're using your computer to store your sexy photos and pics, remember to encrypt your directories. Use something like TrueCrypt.
• When deleting your photos and videos from your computer, make sure it's properly deleted and no traces of it remains. Erase it.
• Keep one copy of your photos and videos. Multiple copies are harder to monitor.
  
• Store your photos in an offline device that only you have access to. Burn them on a CD or DVD and keep it in a place where you store your weed and other illegal substances.

Naive? Perhaps. But that's better than hoping for a world free of malice and perverts.

technorati tags: takebackthetech

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, geekery, life in manila, pop culture, takebackthetech, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines
background noise: bjork - army of me

Of course, there are stories. Stories of women being "raped" in Second Life and chat rooms, and how emotionally traumatic it has been for the victims. Stories of Filipinas online automatically being propositioned and harassed the moment they reveal their nationality. Stories of Hot Asian Chicks and how such a label / service / content-type makes for a really special porn site. Stories of women holed up in some secret office in Makati as employees in a virtual prostitution ring. Stories of women whose naked pictures taken in a moment of kinky sex have become the latest office File Attachment (it actually scares me that almost everyone I know in Manila knows someone who has been that).

The thing about these stories is that how true, how serious, how real they are depends on what and whose agenda is on the table.

• Those who deny that there are gender issues in technology will brush these stories aside as some kind of online urban legend -- so utterly improbable that they definitely don't happen in real life.
• Or those who believe that online sexual harrasment is the only gender issue in technology but since there's no real harm done to body, it's not really a serious issue.
• Then there are those who want to have control of the Internet. Those folks use these stories as proof that the Internet is a bad place with bad people that needs Good People to regulate and police it.
• Or those who apply the discourse of Choice to the stories -- if a woman chooses to install the Rape App in her Second Life, then she's asking to be raped, therefore there is no rape.
• Or those silver-lining people who believe that the Hot Asian Women in the World Wide Web of Porn are benefiting financially from their online presence, so it must be an empowering thing.

What bugs me about this is that women are again being sites of debate. Women's experiences online, the content that is generated about them, their further exploitation as a result of everyone being a porn director, these are being used to forward a range of agendas. In the debate about Harmful Content, I'll bet my next salary that someone somewhere will use women's online experience as an ace up their sleeve. And I fear that those who will do that will the be ones who will also call for Censorship and Content Filtering. And the rest, those who disagree with Censorship, will have to take a defensive, dismissive stance against that. The rest will either deny the stories or dismiss their impact on women.

And I will bet my favourite pair of red boots that most of them will be men, and that none of them would be those Hot Asian Chicks that porn sites so love to brag about.

technorati tags: takebackthetech
harmfulcontent

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, takebackthetech
coordinates: london
state of mind: blah

There are some things in life that lose their value the moment you ask for them. Love, for instance. Or more specifically, for someone to love you.  Sing "Love me, love me, say that you love me" in the privacy of your shower (or to a Johnny D poster) all you want, but the moment to you direct those lines to a real person... Lovefool, indeed. The point is that Love given as a result of begging / demanding / asking / blackmailing for it is just not as shiny as Love that's given and shown freely.

Ditto respect.

Ditto a man with a gender perspective.

There's something super special about a project  manager / holder / implementor / human being who willingly and voluntarily seeks to understand their work from a gender perspective. Not because Some Power that Be told them a gender perspective was required for continued support. Not because being gender-sensitive is oh so politically correct. Not because someone asked them to.

But simply because they believe that gender issues are valid social concerns and that their lives are incomplete without a gender perspective.

These days, I want that more than voluntary expressions of love. Or respect.

Seriously.

Tags: feminist rambling, gem, pointless posts
coordinates: kathmandu, nepal

[Written for the Blank Noise Action Heroes Campaign.]

I'd love to have been able to say that it was a dark and stormy night when I first discovered my latent mutant powers. It would even be so comicbook-worthy if my mutant powers were borne out of some radioactive spider bite or radio active isotopes or anything radio active for that matter. But my trigger was something a tad more mundane than that: a drunken sleazoid.

It happened during my first few months of uni. It took me an hour and a half everyday to get to school, and an hour and a half going back home. The trip going back home was slightly more unpleasant because I had to go across the EDSA highway through the Guadalupe overpass to get from the bus stop to where the jeepneys were. The Guadalupe overpass is not the nicest place on Earth. It's stinky, dirty and teeming with people -- all the time. The dust and grime from vehicle emmissions from the highway have settled permanently on every surface of the underpass. The waist-high walls of the overpass, which was put there to protect people from falling off, was also used as a public urinal by men who can't wait for the nearest bathroom.The sides of the overpass are usually peppered with buskers singing Engel Humperdink and Tom Jones songs, happy clappy folks predicting the end of the world and how god's wrath will come down upon all sinners,  people selling pad locks / fake swiss army knives / balut / pots and pans / shoe soles and parts.  Add to that the 50 or so people crossing the overpass at any given point during the day, and cringe at the thought of just how being there feels, sounds and smells like.

But since my mother was not very keen on me attending a university known for its political activism and liberal values, I was not provided any of the comforts of travelling to school everyday (i.e., a car, preferably with a driver, or to live in a place closer to the uni). And since I would rather die than go to yet another Catholic school, I swallowed my mother's conditions for allowing me to study in that uni. So I took a 30-minute jeepney ride to Guadalupe, then an hour-long bus ride to Philcoa to get to the uni, then reversed process, traversing the Guadalupe overpass on the way home. Everyday. For about 7 years.

A few months into my first semester of uni, I was on one of my daily trips back home. It was early evening and I had just gotten off the bus stop at Guadalupe and was making my way across the overpass.

As I waited my turn to descend the flight of stairs on the left side of the overpass, I felt a hand from behind between my legs. I stopped for a second to confirm that there was really a hand up my butt then I panicked when the hand made itself comfortable. So I turned around and saw this old dude who looked and smelled like he had been drinking all day. He wiggled his eyebrows at me and gave me a smug smile. And that was it.

The next thing I knew, he was struggling to keep himself from falling off the flight of stairs on the right side, and my right hand was burning. A quick mental flashback showed me that I had, in my panic, placed my hand on his chest and pushed him away. That quick mental flashback cost me because he soon made his way up towards where I was standing in shock. He screams at me, "whaddya do that for?!?". I scream back, "Because you're a fucking pervert!" Then I pushed him again, this time with both hands. Then I ran down the stairs and got on the first jeepney I could find.

I shook all the way home (and I think I may have shed a few tears). I was completely floored by what had happened. There was nothing in my life that had prepared me for such a scene -- or the realisation of just how unsafe Manila is. Not Manila. Not my city. Not where I felt most comfortable in. Not the place I called home. I felt it had betrayed me in some way. In that 30-minute jeepney ride home, everything and anyone looked sinister. Was the man beside me sitting a little bit too close? Did the jeepney driver hold on to my hand a few seconds too long as he was taking my fare? Was that teenage boy sitting in front of me eyeing me with malicious intent?

Paranoia to nth degree is not fun.

But as I walked home from the corner where the jeepney dropped me off to my house, I began to feel a manic sense of accomplishment. The look on that drunken freakazoid's face as he struggled for balance on the stairs. And the look on his face when I screamed at him and pushed him again. So shocked! Probably as shocked as I was at the moment. Like he couldn't believe it was happening.  Like he couldn't believe that some girl wouldn't let him get away with his petty, perverse thrills. And that made me laugh so hard, I had to spend an extra five minutes composing myself before I stepped into my house.

It was then that I began to realise my latent mutant powers: I cause serious damage to anyone who physically threatens me.

In the years between that day on the Guadalupe overpass and the writing of this entry, I have come across men in different places who, for reasons known only to them, get a thrill out of making threatening sexual advances to random women. And everytime that has happened, my mutant powers to cause serious damage, to defend myself, has resurfaced. Like the construction worker who walked up to me to tell me that he thinks I have a big pussy. I flicked a lit cigarette on his face and ran off as he screamed in pain. Or the man standing next to me in a crowded bus who stared at my boobs and told me he liked them. I kneed him where it hurts then stepped on his foot so hard there was no way he could walk home without hobbling.

I don't walk around Manila thinking it's a sinister place. Nor do I go around thinking every random dude I come across is out to harass me. I don't have to.  I know that if anyone ever tries to come near me with the intent of sexually harassing me, I have my mutant abilities to back me up. I know that my inner mutant would come to save the day.

Hopefully, one encounter with a girl (and her inner mutant) who will fight back would make those men think twice about pulling the same moves on other women. If not, then I hope they meet some other chick with her own latent mutant abilities to teach them a lesson or two.

Tags: feminist rambling, life in manila
coordinates: manila, philippines
background noise: makati traffic

Oh, I can go on and on. Then go on a bit further. Then talk about the problem with huge corporations...

But case in point: A website called Change for Equality, which aims to promote equal rights for women in Iran has been filtered by the government three times in less than two weeks. What this means is that the website (despite numerous domain name changes) has been blocked by the Iranian government -- which further means that ideas about women's equality in Iran are not reaching Iranian people.

For those of you who ever felt like taking a huge bat to their systems administrator for not allowing you to check on your Friendster  account, you know exactly what this is all about. And I hope you can relate with the frustration that government filtering of web content has wrought upon this campaign. So if you have a blog (or two), spend a few minutes cutting and pasting the text below in your respective spaces:

“Change for Equality,” the site of the One Million Signatures Campaign, has been filtered for the third time in less than two weeks. Despite having transferred the contents of our site to yet another domain www.we4change.com, a number of activists involved in the Campaign have decided to support our efforts further, through the establishment of weblogs, aptly titled “Change for Equality” where new articles placed on our site will also be featured.

Along these lines and based on its commitment to the continued dissemination of information about the Campaign, the Media Committee of the Campaign, is requesting all webloggers to assist us. Specifically we are asking that webloggers around the world establish blogs titled “Change for Equality” and post news about the Campaign as well as articles which appear on our site

Through this effort, we can assist in the free flow of information about the Campaign and in so doing we can also collectively object to the practice of filtering in Iran.

Not only is our contact and connection with our readers interrupted each time the site is filtered, but we are forced to expend an enormous amount of energy in reestablishing new sites. The purchase of new domains cost us 10,000 Tomans (roughly $12) each time. As a result, the continued filtering of our sites also puts a financial burden on the Campaign, which relies solely on the voluntary contributions of Campaign members and supporters to cover expenses. As such, any other suggestions for the elimination of the negative impact of filtering are most welcome.

In our initial effort to address the problem of continued filtering of our site, 6 weblogs have been established and launched. These weblogs along with our site will be updated simultaneously. Individuals interested in receiving information on new posts to our site and addresses for unfiltered websites and weblogs disseminating Campaign information should add the following Yahoo ID to their messengers: we4change@yahoo.com.

To share with us the address of new weblogs dedicated to sharing information about the Campaign, you can contact the Media Committee of the Campaign at onlinewechange@gmail.com.

New articles on the Campaign can currently be viewed on the site of the Campaign as well as on the following blogs:

http://we-change1.blogfa.com/

http://wechange1.blogspot.com/

http://wechange.blogfa.com/

http://we4change.blogspot.com/

http://we4change.blogfa.com

http://we-change5.blogfa.com/

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines
state of mind: blank
background noise: kitty cats fighting over a plastic bag

Well here you go, a woman who is not afraid to speak her mind. Yay. But what to do when her mind goes against what you believe in?

Over at flinkdesign, a blogger called Mir (a technonerd feminist) has a huge entry against the Take Back the Tech campaign, ranting against how the campaign places women once again in a "victim", us-against-them position. This time in relation to tech.

To be honest, a lot of what she says makes sense to me. I myself cringe at the almost knee-jerk strategy of using the victimisation of women to justify calls for women's empowerment. I've always believed that the call for women's empowerment didn't need any justification. Ditto, gender equality. Whenever someone asks me "why focus on gender?", I almost always respond with "why not.".

I also get her point about how women who have never owned Technology can take back the tech. Like how are we supposed to take back something that wasn't even ours to begin with. She's not the first person who has raised that.

But in the same vein, we should recognise that there are cases of "victimisation" of women in relation to technology. How there are very few women on decision-making tables in relation to ICT. How there are gender differences in how men and women have access to technology. How gender-based stereotypes persist in how men and women are represented on the Internet. How techie women are rare and are therefore the exceptions and not the rule.

But I suppose what Mir is really reacting against is the relationship between violence against women and ICTs. That's her main beef with the campaign. She's saying that there is no relation,  that "Take Back the Tech is missing the point by focusing on the gendered/bodified ramifications of techno-society (porn , stalking and rape to name just a few). Violence now is so subtle, so inscribed in the way we think about ourselves and the lives we live, that I would doubt we even consider it violence."

Then she ends with this: "I certainly don't think of myself as committing a violent act every time I return my damaged Ipod and get a shiny new one thanks to my watertight Applecare agreement."

Huh?

How did the point come from how gendered/bodified ramifications of techno-society and conclude with how having a damaged Ipod fixed is not a violent act? Such Straw Man tactics are not nice.

I also don't get how someone who rants against the assumptions the campaign is making about women (as weak, powerless victims of the big bad techie-male) bases her rant on her own assumptions of the women behind the campaign and what the campaign is all about.

I am so tempted to respond point by point to that blog. But what's the point? The lovely thing about being a Pro Heckler is that you can take pithy potshots and critical comments -- and never have to worry about rebuttals. I highly doubt that Mir will be up for a real discussion on what she's said. Heh. How's that for an assumption?

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, takebackthetech, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines

While tv surfing lastnight, Cirio and I came upon the Tyra Banks Show on channel 52. Now my brother, he likes Tyra Banks -- not for the obvious reasons (the female of the species do nothing for him), but because I think he likes that she's proving that there's life after being a super model (not that my brother is a super model but his inner Super Model probably relates to Tyra Banks). In any case, I'm glad that he did stop at that show because the topic was "A Day in the Life of a Porn Star" -- so apt for the Take Back the Tech campaign!

First off, kudos to Tyra Banks for covering such a "taboo" topic. And extra kudos to her for trying to keep an open mind about it. The show presented different women in different stages in relation to the porn industry. The first two guests were women on the top of the porn industry -- the lead actresses in two of the major porn production companies. Then the third guest was a woman who wanted to go into hardcore porn. The last one was a woman who wanted to get out of making porn movies.

But what really captured my attention was this ex-porn actress-turned-doctor who heads the Adult Industry Medical Health Foundation, which provides health care services to porn stars and sex workers. She seemed to be quite pragmatic about being a former pornstar. She even told the woman who wanted out of the industry that it will be challenge to try to lead a "normal" life of a model or a mainstream actress because her films and images would continue to be re-produced and distributed, and that the reality is that she will always be stamped as an ex-porn actress. So the solution seemed to be to claim being a porn actress (even an ex one). To not give in to the social stigmatisation of being a porn industry worker.

Another thing that Tyra Banks pointed out was the double standard between male and female porn actors. Male pornstars could be older, while there was a high turn-over rate for female porn actors. It seemed that the porn-consuming public expects their women to be young. But that's true of the movie industry in general, isn't it.

technorati tags: takebackthetech

Tags: feminist rambling, pop culture, takebackthetech, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines
state of mind: busy