I wish I hadn't checked my Facebook yesterday.
Even though I was immediately disturbed by the bra colour status trend once I worked it out, I was annoyed to catch myself imagining what lies beneath the shirts of several of my female friends and associates, young and old, as I saw their updates.
I can't help but feel that it created a new platform to objectify millions of women and reduced them to their body parts. Not that I'm advocating bra-shame, but I think we can read between the lines and see who benefits most from these updates.
For those few split seconds it felt like I, a mostly straight woman, was thinking inappropriately about women I'm not even attracted to. I would never ever have visualised these particular women in that way had I not seen their status updates. I just can't help but wonder if they considered who amongst their friends might be doing the same.
In comments people keep associating it with breast cancer awareness (or at least a reminder to check breasts for lumps) but I found what I think is the original chain message and it does not mention this once. It's all in the name of 'fun' and supposedly 'awareness' but I can't help but wonder, in the interest of improving the status of women, can't we do better for ourselves than announcing our bra colour to the world?
I was tempted to update my status with 'Ash - burnt it' but decided against it :)
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I made a community post on this a couple hours ago. I don't know/think it will get posted, but I'm glad others were annoyed by this meme, too.
Here's the message I got in my inbox:
We are playing a game...... silly, but fun! Write the color of your bra as your status, just the color, nothing else!! Copy this and pass it on to all Females ...... NO MEN!! This will be fun to see how it spreads, and we are leaving the men wondering why all females just have a color as their status!! Let's have fun.
Yeah, that's really clearly meant to benefit men. If it bothers you so much, defriend or hide the people. Problem solved!
Most women wear bras. Nearly every woman you talk to today will be wearing a bra. (Also, underwear.) Chances are, you may even see an exposed bra strap. It could be exposed by accident, on purpose, or because the person couldn't be bothered to deal with a falling-down strapless bra and felt like wearing spaghetti-straps anyway. Is that going to bother you too? Boobs and everything related to boobs are not necessarily sexual. You have a right to your puritanism, but it's your problem to deal with it.
Also, this: "I, a mostly straight woman, was thinking inappropriately about women I'm not even attracted to."
It would probably be inappropriate to ask most of the women about their bras, and inappropriate to harass them because of it. Thinking about the fact that they are wearing a certain color bra hardly qualifies.
I was going to comment on this too.
If a female friend tells me her bra colour, I *might* picture the bra itself - but I wouldn't be having sexual thoughts about her. I don't consider a bra sexual. Even if she showed me her boobs I might not think sexual thoughts. So I don't see how thinking of what colour bra someone has equates to thinking of them in this way.
But what really bothered me was the use of the term "inappropriate". When you say inappropriate, do you mean sexual? If so, why not say that? As is you are implying thinking sexual thoughts is somehow inappropriate which is not cool.
Exactly. You don't need to ask someone's permission to feel attracted to them or have sexual thoughts about them. The important thing is to ACT appropriately about those sexual thoughts.
I really don't care who jerks off to me. I'm even less concerned about who knows my bra color. I'm much more concerned with creepers who hit on me and won't take no for an answer.
If they just went home and pictured me in a bra for a while, I'd be creeper-free and much happier.
Bingo - bang on. I 100% agree with this.
That made me think of some rightwinger on WND whining about being forced to think sinful thoughts about Brad Pitt's undies.
Even though it wasn't a sexual response from me, I felt that what was inappropriate was the split second picturing their bra. Given that I wouldn't separate these women's breasts from the rest of their body in real life, it felt mildly objectifying, that is all.
But their bra is not part of their body... its a peice of clothing and thus cannot be objectified.
In full agreement with this. The idea that all female body parts are inherently sexual, & if you think about them at all, you must be objectifying women and showing them disrespect, is part of the problem of sexism. Especially since women DO have body parts (including breasts, and the bras that contain them), & one can hardly have a realistic conception of what women are like without becoming aware of that every so often.
Breasts are most often not being used for sexual purposes, and most of the time women wear bras to stay comfortable & keep their nipples from chafing against clothing (well, that's why I wear mine), not to arouse anyone. It's not inherently objectifying to consider the fact that someone is wearing a bra. Even if it arouses you (impersonal you, not addressing anyone in particular!), that's not insulting or degrading unless you use it as an excuse to harass the woman.
The group that a male friend joined, called "Tell us the cup size too" (or similar), suggests that the trend is in fact generating an objectifying, sexual response. I'm sure there are many other groups like it popping up.
No, bra straps don't 'bother me' and dammit I'm not a puritan. I just don't see how announcing your bra colour ***because your friends are doing it*** helps anyone, particularly the breast cancer cause, that's all.
I realise now that stating my sexuality like that was irrelevant and misleading about why I was uncomfortable; it was more the TMI factor for me.
I'd rather not know the colour of my male boss' underpants, either. Ugh.
I dunno why exactly, but your statement:
I'd rather not know the colour of my male boss' underpants, either. Ugh.
Kinda rubs me the wrong way. Like you think the male body is gross or something. I guess I just wish people werenèt so scared of the human body. Everyone wants everyone to cover up, and you canèt show any nudity or even talk about it without offending some people, etc. It just doesnèt seem healthly or respectful to humanity IMO. but ièm probably not explaining it well.
Okay, so maybe it does generate an objectifying, sexual response. So what? Why is that our problem? If that's what bothers you, your complaint is with the people who are responding in that way, rather than the participants or the meme itself.
If you try hard enough, you can come up with a sexual, objectifying response to just about anything. Fact. If you want to plan your life around not saying or doing anything that could possibly generate a sexual, objectifying response, you are welcome to do so. I'm too busy and I don't care enough.
Just to add another layer of precision...
People that are prone to objectify stuff will find away to insert that objectifcation into everything. So it makes sense that they would take women posting their bra color one step further.
It is more a function of the objectifierst than what they choose to objectify.
Hell, women can't eat a damn banana without some dudes thinking about cock in the mouth.
And that is when women are using their teeth... to bite down all the way through.
Great points nattles thing and Steven.
Obviously bras and the boobs in them are up there amongst the top ways to objectify women, often in detached form. The meme bothered me because I saw the potential for it to be more about mild titillation than cancer.
I think it's almost become second nature for me to do/wear things that make me feel good and true to myself without being an obvious target for objectification. I started doing this around the same time I started speaking out against objectification/sexism/and the rest, but perhaps I need to rethink some things - you've given me food for thought :)
And honeybee, I truly don't see the male body as gross. I just find professional relationships easier to manage when highly personal and unnecessary information of the TMI kind goes left unknown.
I'm tempted to borrow your idea and say my bra is charcoal. :)
How does this benefit men? You're just posting colors, and men aren't even supposed to be privy to the message. Mindless maybe, but it's the reason I can't get worked up about it.
I'm pretty sure its been leaked. My sister's boyfriend has "light purple" as his status.
That doesn't necessarily mean anything.
I nearly posted a snarky color like "puke green" just because the messages meant nothing to me. My roommate's message was a snarky commentary on the colors (for the record, he went plaid.. as in the speed of colors for anyone who gets the reference).
Once we found out what it was, we were both "why?"
Especially since I didn't really need to know anything about anyone's bras, really.
To pretend like this is some kind of women's only secret is naive. I first heard of this when I had a bunch of guy friends statuses say things like "thanks for the distraction", "hair" and other comments. I saw these statuses from men before I ever saw any women post colors.
I am also outraged by this trend. I salute you for not taking the easy way and ignoring what women choose to write on their own statuses, but instead being a patriot and, dare I say it, a hero of the Facebook/blogosphere community by standing up to this injustice.
Also, For those few split seconds it felt like I, a mostly straight woman, was thinking inappropriately about women I'm not even attracted to. should be on a best of list somewhere. Commentary gold. Curse those sexy FB siren statuses for making you feel inappropriately about the writers.
Aleks, I appreciate that you're such a fan. Humbled.
I'm not trying to be a 'hero of the Facebook/blogosphere community' for what it's worth, just highlighting another trivial breast cancer awareness campaign which is potentially generating a wave of sexual objectification; a result which is perhaps unintended by those who participate. Geez.
Don't be so modest. When everyone else sat back and just allowed this travesty to happen, you actually did something about it.
Wow, really not sure what I've done to offend or upset you aleks. So much of what we read on this site and others is commentary on essentially trivial stuff, but seemingly small and meaningless things often matter the most.
And thanks for the advice to 'trade up' my friends on the other post. Need I remind you that you only need to be friends with the OP on Facebook to see what *their* friends have commented beneath.
I take offence to your implication that my friends who have been affected in some way by breast cancer, but who have decided not to comment on or participate in this trivial crap, need to be traded up.
You were insulting your facebook friends, not I. I just suggested a solution.
Saying that no-one on my homepage has used the meme as a platform for sharing breast cancer stories is not an insult to my friends, aleks.
My friends have simply not been inspired to share their stories in response to this meme, which I do find understandable. All I was saying was it's a positive thing your friends have. You see, all I've seen in response is sexual objectification from some friends, though mostly from friends of friends, and a few people joining idiotic spin-off groups.
Isn't there *anyone* else on the internets you feel like taking issue with now?
No, ex-colleague, I don't want to know your bra colour!
I wish I hadn't checked my Facebook yesterday.
Even though I was immediately disturbed by the bra colour status trend once I worked it out, I was annoyed to catch myself imagining what lies beneath the shirts of several of my female friends and associates, young and old, as I saw their updates.
I can't help but feel that it created a new platform to objectify millions of women and reduced them to their body parts. Not that I'm advocating bra-shame, but I think we can read between the lines and see who benefits most from these updates.
For those few split seconds it felt like I, a mostly straight woman, was thinking inappropriately about women I'm not even attracted to. I would never ever have visualised these particular women in that way had I not seen their status updates. I just can't help but wonder if they considered who amongst their friends might be doing the same.
In comments people keep associating it with breast cancer awareness (or at least a reminder to check breasts for lumps) but I found what I think is the original chain message and it does not mention this once. It's all in the name of 'fun' and supposedly 'awareness' but I can't help but wonder, in the interest of improving the status of women, can't we do better for ourselves than announcing our bra colour to the world?
I guess it's between you and your friends whether any of that is insulting. Are they not insulted when you say that to their faces?
Isn't there *anyone* else on the internets you feel like taking issue with now?
Poor you, so picked on. You do realize you created this post calling out people who did nothing more to you than update a facebook status with a garment color, right?
Don't feel picked on, just fascinated by you taking such issue with my post. The crux of your argument here seems to be an anti-policing sentiment, which is interesting given that so much of your energy has gone into policing this issue as unworthy of attention.
Garments are a feminist issue.
Breast cancer awareness campaigns are a feminist issue.
Memes "for girls only" are a feminist issue, particularly when millions participate.
Over and out.
I didn't say the issue was unworthy of attention, I said the women involved were unworthy of attack. Big, big difference.
i hate meme's like these but because breast cancer has affected people I know I decided to participate. However, I changed the message and put a link at the end of it to the breast cancer site and asked people to visit and make a donation.
Okay, yeah, this is silly and pointless. And as several commenters have pointed out, it doesn't need to be harmful.
But... It's the connection to breast cancer that's harmful. Breast cancer activism has consistently been trivialized. (Think shirts that implore you to save the wearer's breasts. Although I kind of liked one that said "If I had breast cancer, you'd have to look me in the eye"). It has consistently been deployed through silly games/slogans which focus on saving breasts as sexual objects, NOT saving women. So I think highlighting breast cancer through a very silly and potentially sexual game is problematic.
And you think breasts are not important?
Tell the women who have LOST their breast(s) to cancer how unimportant and JUST FOR MEN their breast(s) was/were and see what kind of reaction you'd get. I know one and I can tell you she'd be pissed the FUCK off about it.
I don't think that the commenter was saying breasts aren't important. In fact, I don't read that at all.
But if we are talking about the importance of breast cancer awareness, it isn't about the breasts per se. It's catching the cancer in the breast before it metastasizes, destroys the person's body, and kills them. Isn't this the point of all cancer awareness in the end?
Making it only about the breasts trivializes the entire thing for victims of the disease, either those who die from it or those who lose one or both of their breasts. By only focusing on breasts, we are saying that the reason breast cancer awareness matters is because we like breasts. But you know that the reason breast cancer awareness matters is that people like your friend (I am assuming) caught it early enough so that it didn't become a fatal disease (I hope and pray that is true). For survivors who have had a single or double mastectomy, they are constantly reminded by the campaigns for awareness about the disease that has, in some form, devastated part of their lives, that they have already lost the most important thing, their breasts. In fact, though, they have saved themselves the most important things: their organs, their brain, their heart, their lives.
So, I agree with the original commenter that there is a lot of value on focusing on saving lives. This doesn't downplay the loss that women feel when they have to sacrifice their breasts for their overall health (And in case it matters, I have known four people with breast cancer, all close relatives - one died at age 33 after a double mastectomy and the other 3 have one original boob between them). In fact, I just think it refocuses it on the ultimate goal of breast cancer awareness and prevention.
I have to agree with Jessica - on the fact that there's too much emphasis on BOOBS when it comes to breast cancer awareness, and not prevention of death by breast cancer.
You don't see shirts that say Save the Uteri for uterine cancer awareness. In the case of all cancers except for breast cancer, its generally about the person, not the body part.
But I don't see the original poster saying boobs aren't important.
So yes, 100% agreement.
For those of you that see it as harmless, realize that many of us are just so sick and tired of the rampant sexism in the "breast cancer awareness." OMG let's save the tittays lest straight men have nothing left to ogle, and let's post our bra colors to titillate men into paying attention. What about the human beings attached to those breasts?
I get what you're saying I just don't see how posting our bra colours will titillate men.
Nothing is stopping them from picturing us in our bra right now. I don't see how saying what colour it is changes anything.
I can't speak for all men but I was thinking about breasts long before I logged onto Facebook this morning.
And another thing:
This is not particularly meant to titillate anyone. And if is, it's a pretty tame sort of titillation.
I resent the idea that I should organize my life around not titillating men. It's a fun game, and apparently it's for breast cancer, and I'd like to participate. I shouldn't have to care about whether some dude might find it arousing, because one way or another, that's still organizing my life around men.
"I resent the idea that I should organize my life around not titillating men"
Exactly, great comment. I really could care less if I arouse men. As long as they leave me alone they can get aroused all they want.
Exactly. You could be in something really "frumpy" and in sneakers and not put together, but somewhere some straight guy might be finding that arousing in his own mind. What then?
You could be in something really "frumpy" and in sneakers and not put together, but somewhere some straight guy might be finding that arousing in his own mind.
You have deciphered the straight guy code.
Are you trying to be sarcastic? If so, I don't understand what would bring on the snark. I'm just saying, pretty much anything you can think of, someone will find it sexy. ANYTHING.
I'm 100% sure he was actually agreeing with you and just trying to be funny! :)
You are 100% correct.
As there are two posts about this, I'll put my response here as well:
That message was a bit different from the one I received yesterday:
"Something fun is going on.... write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to ONLY gals no men .... It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. Send this message to all of the women you know and tell them you support breast cancer research and awareness. It will be a great way to remind each other to keep up with out exams and it will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status... LOL!"
I think depending on which message you received, this could be seen a number of different ways. I personally don't mind something that lets women tell each other that they support breast cancer awareness, even if it means posting their bra colors for each other. I don't care much for the line about the men, but I still think the message to think about breast cancer is a good one.
For those few split seconds it felt like I, a mostly straight woman, was thinking inappropriately about women I'm not even attracted to.
You might want to evaluate why the idea of any other woman as sexy is so disturbing to you. It's a bit heterosexist, from this vantage point.
I realise now that that comment does come over as very heterosexist. I'm not sure really what I was getting at there other than an attempt to clarify my sexuality, but I'm certainly not meaning to imply that some women can't be sexy.
We've all thrown in anecdotes that have proven to be less-than-great. I just thought I'd do the "hey, what is this?" to be on the safe side.
I do agree with you, the whole thing is just freaking bizarre.
Should we ask men to announce their condom sizes to raise testicular cancer awareness? :)
The color of my underwear doesn't "raise awareness" for ovarian cancer and the color of my bra doesn't "raise awareness" for breast cancer. The color of my bra being made public for a charity only diminishes the real issue of a deadly disease to the mere style of underwear which happens to wrap around the area where breast cancer occurs.
It's insulting.
If you want to raise awareness for breast cancer, link to an info site or a charity for breast cancer, explaining how women can do self-exams and when to get checked.
Then don't do it. FFS, this is not complicated.
I didn't, and then I posted my reasons why I didn't. Not complicated at all, you're right.
What I don't get is why you felt the need to police what everyone else does. How does this harm you?
It harms me because it trivializes a serious medical issue.
Really, it would be condom color (or maybe even flavor).
Yeah but if you do so 99% of people wonèt follow the link or care. Because most people are too busy and have too many other things on their minds and are inundated with so many advertisements, links, etc. already that most people just tune that stuff out. I know I do.
It often takes something like this to get the general population engaged. Maybe it shouldnèt - but for right now it does.