It's my fault, because I am a woman

It just never fails to amaze me the depths that newspapers go to in blaming women. I did not even need to search to come up with the following: "The scorching heatwave in early July caused road accidents to soar because male drivers were distracted by womens' skimpy outfits, according to insurance claim figures.". The emphasis is mine to highlight how they are blaming women for distracting men and therefore causing the accidents. Perhaps it is just the construction of the language, but surely these accidents are caused by men’s failure to concentrate on the road rather than because of what women are wearing?

At the same time, I discovered another article thanks to a Facebook friend. "Casual sexism is nothing but misogyny". This give a number of examples of behaviour and language that just shows the level of misogyny that exists. The next to last paragraph really says it all:

“There is a final, huge, virtually universal form of casual sexism which is expressed in nearly every house. Any man who thinks it's OK to live in a household where the woman does the overwhelming majority of all the housework, childcare and family admin is a woman-hater. If he weren't, it would agonise him to live in such an unequal and exploitative setup.”

Of course, some could argue that the following headline shows responsible action "Council bans mini-skirts in crackdown on 'inappropriate' clothing in the office" but when I reached the end of the article, I became concerned at a comment from a council spokesman: “We do not have lots of staff at the council wearing mini-skirts - that was just picked as an example of what would be inappropriate.” Why not pick on men’s clothing? Why pick on women? Once again, it is women that are put down.

"There aren't many women who can pull off looking equally as stunning off-duty as she does at a formal ‘do’.". At what point is a woman required to dress in a certain way? Why do newspapers demand that any woman should look as good off-duty as she does on-duty? What gives them a right to even comment on a woman’s clothes?

Perhaps I have come full circle: the media demands that women dress in a particular way and as a result, this cause them to become a distraction for male drivers, causing them to have more accidents. So it is not women who are to blame for men having accidents, but the media; a sector dominated by ... men!