Are Durham Police Sexist?

The recent tweets, featuring only female celebrities, make reference to Dolly Parton’s breasts and Madonna’s virginity amongst other things, causing questions to have been raised as to whether these tweets are sexist.

DD…a slight underestimate.

Comparing Dolly Parton’s bra size to a bike lock, no matter how inaccurate an estimate, is surely encouraging students to look at her chest rather than jump to lock up their bikes. They’ll be thinking less about bike racks and more about her rack.

The point is there, but it has not been made in the right way.

Fair point but not what the song is about.

An attempt to get ‘down with the kids’ by the Police Liaison Officer appears well meaning but may be misconstrued. The songs and artists used are not particularly contemporary either, the most recent album cover is from when most of us were ten, this means that any meaning is lost amongst a series of sexual pictures barely relating to crime.

One second year female said “I just don’t get what virginity or boobs has to do with crime prevention.”

Hmmm.

The tweets continue to promote safety but using sexualised pictures that have little or no relevance to the points being made. You can’t fault the puns but you have to question what any sort of mention of the word ‘virgin’ is doing in a tweet concerned with locking up windows and doors.

The prying eyes of whom? Poor Madonna, objectified again.

Someone even questioned the police directly, but they seemingly did not understand the confusing nature of their puns:

In the interests of equality we should be seeing an even balance of male and female celebrities in the Police’s tweets soon, perhaps a picture of David Beckham in his underwear warning of ‘suspicious packages’.