"Hypothetical" question

[triskellian]

If one had to refer in an academic essay to the article of women's underwear which traditionally covers the bottom, how would one do so? I'm inclined towards 'knickers', but it doesn't sound very serious :-(

Time for a poll...

[Poll #1156767]

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

There's something about the term "panties" that pisses me off quite irrationally. I've no idea why.

[white_hart]

Me too. I think it's because it sounds like it's supposed to be 'cute'. I always think it comes across as hugely patronising.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I always think it comes across as hugely patronising.

It's OK, the panties don't mind.

[smiorgan.livejournal.com]

"Don't get your panties in a bind" being a prime example I guess

[sosoclever.livejournal.com]

If what you wear under your clothing is "underwear," and things like jackets and coats and snowpants are "outerwear," what are clothes? "Middlewear"? "Inbetweenwear"?

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Wear?

[killalla]

Some alternative terminology:

Modern: underwear, women's underwear
Period: foundation garments, lingerie
Archaic: drawers, bloomers, petticoat etc.

[smiorgan.livejournal.com]

I think you need a modern definition for a modern audience. I voted for "briefs", being specific to the part of anatomy they cover, unencumbered with different meanings between UK and US English and, well, boring. Which is what you want if you want to present something academic without the readers sniggering.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Why didn't I get to write essays about women's underwear when I was a student?

[triskellian]

I dunno. Maybe you should have done more critical discourse analysis of articles like this?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

FFS! I don't know which is worse, the article or the actuality it depicts.

[triskellian]

I'm going with the actuality being worse, since the article at least has the small redeeming feature of providing a nice barrel, well stocked with fat fish for me to shoot ;-)

[smiorgan.livejournal.com]

Fat fish in knickers!

Mmmm, fish.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, not an approach wise to adopt against an actual Russian bank -- as Barclays are probably about to find out.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I vote for the article being worse, at least on the evidence presented.

The only problem I have with what the bank's doing here is that I don't see any male employees in their panties badgers (with guns). Other than that it just seems like a harmless publicity stunt.

The article, by constrast, is a kind of "Oh, this is so awful (PS. Check out the hooters on this one!)" which I find really irritating. Can't people just be grown up enough to admit when they'd like to look at some porn?

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

The only problem I have with what the bank's doing here is that I don't see any male employees in their badgers

What other problem would there be (apart from maybe "God hates pictures of people in their undies"?)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

How about "Sexually objectifying people in this way demeans the subject, the proponent and the spectator alike"?

Or, more practically, "Those members of staff thus depicted are going to have difficulty getting external clients etc to take them very seriously from now on"?

(If they really are members of staff, rather than models pretending to be, that is.)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

The former sounds to me like a secular synonym for "God hates pictures of people in their undies". I know of the existence of that point of view, but I don't share it. If someone does something which she herself is not ashamed of, then you can call her "demeaned" if and only if you choose to consider her demeaned.

It's interesting to compare this with the (in)famous WI calendar, containing similar shots as far as I'm aware. Would you say that the WI models were demeaned, or does the fact that you don't fancy them make it not demeaning? ;-p

The latter is a tactical decision. If the bank believed that putting senior employees in the calendar would significantly impact their jobs, then I imagine it would have used models instead.

I would add a possible extra problem, actually, which is that in general these employees have performed non-contractual duties, possibly under duress, which might have long-term effects on the employee. But there's no evidence that the employees are unhappy about what they've done (then again, maybe there wouldn't be...), so I consider that none of my business unless indicated otherwise. The fact that the CEO and his wife were running the show is a bit worrying in that respect, I'll grant you.

Any indication that there may have been duress again comes back to the fact that women have been used and not men. It suggests to me that there *may* be discriminatory expectations about the willingness of women to do this (among the women themselves as much as anyone else, perhaps). It *may* be that those women will be forced to accept attitudes and comments from co-workers and customers which a man would never face, because they would be considered unacceptable directed towards a man. The calendar suggests to me that perhaps the bank expects its female employees to get their kit off, which if true I consider a problem.

If the calendar were mixed-sex, it would be a lot closer to suggesting that the bank can find 12 members of staff willing to take their kit off, which for me is not a problem on a scale sufficient to care about. It would be far less suggestive of an ingrained lack of respect for "any person willing to appear in a suggestive picture" than the actual calendar is suggestive of an ingrained lack of respect for "any woman". The same applies to the way the story was covered.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Personally I do feel that the WI people were demeaned too, regardless of whether or not I fancy them. Of course, they may not have felt themselves to have been so, and nor may these Russian women -- nor may people who work as strippers, etc. But in that case, I don't share their view.

I entirely agree that a mixed-sex calendar would have been less problematic in a number of ways. (And probably wouldn't have been covered at all in the UK news, let's face it -- or if so, I bet the female photos would have had more prominence than the male.) However I believe that still would have been sufficiently suggestive of the ingrained lack of respect etc to be considered objectionable.

(BTW I've just noticed the most amusing name of the poll. If triskellian is still reading this thread, ha ha ha, and I can only hope that "yesterday we had daily cleaning".)

[triskellian]

Still reading ;-)

I went to reread before writing this comment because I only remembered the first line. Tomorrow, presumably, will just be "refer to two days ago"...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

"what to do after firing" -- it's not got that bad, has it?

[darkside-doris.livejournal.com]

underpants seems too male I think.

knickers is a good one - as it sounds obviously female... but it does also have that sniggering effect!!

Good luck!! :)

[thecesspit.livejournal.com]

Pants, to my constant confusion, are trousers here in the North American Union.

It also confuses cow-orkers when I claim that something is pants, a pile of pants or a big steaming pile of pants.... I mean, you'd stare and look befuddled at a colleague muttering about trousers...

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I do sometimes claim that something is a big steaming pile of trousers, if that helps at all. I'm not sure why.

[thecesspit.livejournal.com]