But are London’s front-line Firefighters REALLY that upset about it?
Sunday 15th July | by Cop(ex) | Connect with us on Twitter |
Firstly, for those of you who don’t watch ITV2’s popular ‘Love Island’ series then I apologise as you probably could not give two hoots about this article.
However if, like me, your Mrs straps you down every evening and ‘forces’ you to watch it, then you might be slightly amused (and/or bemused) by this article.
Not too long ago, we heard how London Fire Brigades’ Commissioner Danny Cotton, called on the producers of ‘Fireman Sam’ to re-brand the much-loved iconic children’s character as ‘Firefighter Sam’.
We asked at the time, if any of our 241,000 female followers would be put off from joining the Fire Service owing to the fact that ‘Fireman Sam’ wasn’t referred to as ‘Firefighter Sam’.
The response was a resounding ‘no’.
However, it now would appear that the London Fire Brigades Senior Management Team, has now decided that the production team of Love Island should not have invented the ‘sexy fireman’ challenge that saw male contestants try to ‘woo’ their female companions by dancing half-naked whilst ‘wearing’ novelty firefighter ‘kit’.
The Tweets published by the Official London Fire Brigade Twitter account said:
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“It might be one of the hottest tv shows in 2018, but the stereotypes used on #LoveIsland were straight from the 1970s.
“The term fireman hasn’t been used for more than 30 years and women can be firefighters too #FireFightingSexism”.
In another Tweet, the London Fire Brigades social media team tweeted:
“If #LoveIsland had just the women islanders as nurses tending to the men, would people have found that acceptable?
“Last night’s ‘fireman challenge’ shows why we need #Firefightingsexism to show firefighting is a profession for all”.
In response to the 2nd tweet, a follower replied with:
“Are you still sore over a bad reality show?
Come on now, most people know that when it comes to rescuing it’s the “firemen” that do the heavy work, now get over it and get back to work”.
One Tweeter, in reply to the London Fire Brigades first tweet, said:
“LoveIsIand – Hello. The fire service is for public protection not censoring TV programmes.
Mind your own business and leave out the language racism”.
The term “fireman’ was dropped by the fire service in the 1980s on account of it being ‘sexist’ and in October last year the #FireFightingSexism campaign was launched in order to try and stop widespread use of the word.
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In the London Fire Brigade alone there are more than 300 women working as firefighters, with the first female firefighter joining the Brigade in 1982.
Steve Apter, Deputy Commissioner and the Brigade’s director of safety and assurance, said:
“As a programme that openly encourages women to be independent, I am extremely disappointed that the producers thought it was acceptable to conform to outdated stereotypes and repeatedly use the word ‘fireman’.
“Firefighting is a job for both men and women and it’s ridiculous that 35 years after the first female firefighter joined London Fire Brigade, that people still refer to the job as fireman.
“While we understand that the challenges on television programmes like Love Island are just for fun, we want to shake off these outdated stereotypes and language choices so more women consider firefighting as a career.
“We owe it to tomorrow’s firefighters to challenge negative stereotypes today.”
At its peak, Love Island has raked in nearly 4 million viewers during some of its most popular episodes.
We have started a support Group for men who are also forced to watch the addictive show.
You can join the Group by following this handy link —>
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