Recently in Media Category

Have we talked about this yet?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/11/17/palin-slams-sexist-newsweek-cover/

I'm trying really hard not to get my dislike for Sarah Palin to interfere with an analysis of sexism. But here's why I think the Newsweek cover isn't sexist:

1) Palin sexualized herself (or let the GOP sexualize her) throughout her campaign to win. She showed some leg in plenty of outfits.

2) She posed for this picture herself for Runner's World. If showing her legs there wasn't sexist, why is it here?

3) She prides in being different from the "elitist DC politicians," which is why she has worked so hard to publicize her family, wink during debates, drop the "g" from all "ing" words, dolling herself up, etc etc. Why is it suddenly sexist for Newsweek then to use a non-business portrayal of her? When has Palin even been business-y?

Your thoughts?

I've been playing World of Warcraft since 2005, and I've noticed a pattern in the treatment of female characters. Of course, sexy and beautiful women are prevalent in the storyline while more clothed women aren't. One can shrug this off as understandable because the gaming industry is inherently androcentric, and women are lucky to be represented at all. That's a very poor excuse, but seems to be the only one the dudes on the Warcraft forums can come up with. The sexy women are only there to serve as eye candy for the dudes that play the game. How else can you explain the Queen of the Dragonflights wearing a bikini and club boots at the top of a 100 story tower in an arctic zone in the middle of winter? That's just not logical even for a game with minotaurs that can shapeshift into cats, dance with you, and then drive away on a motorcycle. 
 
Should we justify the oppressive themes as nothing that should be taken seriously because they are there for dudes, or should we question why these themes exist? Why does the ancient queen of the dragons have to look like a 20 year old beauty queen? The male audience thinks women have no dreams, intelligence, individuality or lives worth noting, so all they're good for is being sexy. Women like Alexstrasza are hailed by the male audience while Jaina gets "Jaina Must Die" clubs. Sylvanas gets a major plot within the story while Tyrande gathers dust in the background. Women are either sexy and prevalent in the story, or modest (if you will) and only talked about. 

Has anyone else noticed the ads for HIV medication on the site?

I find it interesting that the ad reads across the bottom, "Models used for illustrative purposes only."

I have never noticed that on an ad before. Maybe I'm just unobservant, but this is the first time I remember an advertisement make sure we know that the models are only models, they don't actually have HIV.

I wonder why this ad in particular chose to make that announcement - is it because HIV is incurable and don't want the models to be discriminated against, should they be recognized? A part of me wonders if it's because there are two men in the ad, and HIV is still a "gay disease" and they don't want people thinking that these are actually gay men with HIV or something, but of course, I have no proof of that.

Are there other advertisements that inform you that the models are only for illustrative purposes?

(PRNewsFoto/NEWSWEEK)

Sarah Palin hit back at Newsweek today for using a photo of her in running shorts (pulled from a shoot she did for Runner's World) on the cover of their latest issue. Palin said that it was sexist to use a photo of her in such an informal outfit with her legs exposed out of context. I agree with this. I think it is incredibly sexist to expose her in this way, especially since they aren't talking about her running routine, they are talking about her as a politician, her policies, her professional life. This is wrong. She is not the first panned politician in the world, and were it a man in this position (say...George Bush, Rod Blagojevich, etc.) would they ever be put on the cover of a news magazine in shorts? Don't think so.

Although I agree with Palin's argument about the use of the photo, I don't agree with most anything else she says. Even the fact that she decries this photo as sexist and yet is against reproductive rights for women and other feminist-based policies is a contradiction to me. Just another example of conservatives conveniently co-opting feminist ideologies when it suits their agendas. Sorry, in my book you are not allowed to rail against sexism only when it serves your political aims and then completely drop it (or totally reject it) when dealing with policies that actually affect real women. I say, FAIL to Newsweek and Sarah Palin.

I e-mailed Reebok at this address corporate@reebok.com with my concerns about their new campaign for EasyTone shoes, which has the slogan:

88% of men are speechless. 
76% of women jealous.
EasyTone helps you get better legs
and a better butt with every single step.

Apparently Reebok was unconvinced by my opinion. They wrote back the following:

Hello Warren,

Thank you very much for your feedback.  All consumer feedback is helpful, as it provides us with an understanding of the public perception and opinion of our products and marketing. 

The Reebok EasyTone ads were created to clearly illustrate the unique benefits of the footwear in a fun and bold way.  The feedback we have received tells us that many consumers look at the ads in exactly that light, however we acknowledge that some consumers do take exception with the content of the ads.

You can be assured that your feedback will be relayed directly to our marketing team. 

Regards,
Reebok Corporate Communications

If all I had to go on was the mass media to figure out what was what, I would probably believe that yes, in fact, all women are stupid selfish liars.

We lie about being raped all the time just to get back at guys we're mad with or to collect large sums of money frmo celebrities like football players.

We lie about domestic violence all the time to get back at men we're angry at, or if there are bruises involved we totally started that fight and deserve what we got.

We get (or would get) abortions all the time, no matter what, because we don't know ANYTHING about abortions and pregnancy and we're just too selfish to want to spend money on things like babies.

We're also too stupid to make decisions on how we want to give birth which is why it's totally okay to take away a mother's child or press charges when she wants to give birth vaginally or at home instead of with a c-section at a hospital. If we're so stupid we think that a vaginal birth would be okay then we're not responsible enough to take care of that kid.

And now. Now apparently we lie about being pregnant just so we can get a swine flu vaccine before everyone else. Because EVERYONE KNOWS women are stupid selfish liars so why wouldn't it make sense to assume that any women who says she's pregnant so she can get a vaccine is probably lying and should be tested before we even bother to give them a vaccine?

I mean really, we've only got a limited number of vaccines people! Why should we waste it on lying women?! Better double check to make sure they really are pregnant because that healthy 30 something year old man may miss a vaccine for a disease that isn't potentially lethal to him.

Yeah, I'm sick and tired of seeing news reports that love to focus on women being stupid, liars and selfish, whether it's coverage on an abortion issue, a celebrity rape case, or the swine flu vaccine. I don't think doctors are actually making women take pregnancy tests before they give the vaccine (or I really hope they aren't) but the fact that the media thinks this is something that we should be concerned with is very telling and makes me really, really upset.

Why do fashion models never smile? However glamorous or attractive they are, it's hard to find a model who truly looks happy to be photographed. With all the money that goes into advertising, there must be a reason for this.

In fact, it seems that the more expensive the product, the more glum the girl advertising it. While tampon ads often feature maniacally grinning woman, a $100,000 necklace might be worn by a woman who looks like she's got a turd in her mouth, but doesn't want to let on.

So why do models never smile if the product is expensive? According to John Berger, the answer is envy. "Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance," he writes in Ways of Seeing ,

It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you. You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest--if you do, you will become less enviable...It is this which explains the absent, unfocused look of so many glamour images. They look out over the looks of envy which sustain them.

I fully admit I don’t listen to much music.  My 1st generation 1g iPod nano broke sometime this summer and I haven’t bothered to try to find the money to get another one yet.  My computer has been broken for a few months (I am using a computer lab computer right now) so I don’t have any of my music here, either.  But even when I did have those things I didn’t listen to much music.  It was mainly feminist/queer folksy or rock with some riot grrrl thrown in there.  Popular music is not even on my radar.  I go to a tiny little hippie college where I’m only in a car once a week anyway, so I don’t even really listen to the radio.  We don’t have TVs in residences so I don’t ever flip on MTV.  Sometimes it feels isolating, but it’s also nice at times.

I also don’t go to parties very often.  Either I don’t know of their existence or I have no interest in going.  Last Friday, however, the LGBT group on our campus threw a dance and, since I’m the president and all, I had to be there.  Even while we were setting up somebody put on some music and I was really surprised to hear misogynistic music.  I brought it up then and there.  I asked why we were listening to music that promoted putting women at a lower place than men and only was talking about the physical attractiveness, or lack thereof, of women.  The response was that I was being “too sensitive” or “stupid” and that “nobody would come” if that kind of music wasn’t being played.

This dance was supposed to be a safe, inclusive space.  And it definitely wasn’t for me.

This movie was created as a response by Italien women to the rampant sexism on TV, and Berlusconi and his ilk. Not that it's much better in the US, just watch FOX, and anything on cable!!

I for one have stopped visiting Italy and won't be until this fool is dead, retired, or have resigned.

Nina

Previously posted on EvilSlutopia.com ...

We've all seen those annoying Swiffer commercials in which a mop or broom or duster just can't get over being replaced by a Swiffer product... this one ... this one ... extra creepy one .

So here's a mini-guest blog from my 9-year-old daughter. (The title was her idea.) She really doesn't like those commercials...

Dear Swiffer,

I think your commercials are totally sexist.

There is no good reason why in all your commercials there is a girl cleaning the house with Swiffer. Why are there only women doing the cleaning? It makes just as much sense that a man would be doing the cleaning of the house. Yes, some women do housecleaning, but some women don't. And it's not the only thing that women can do.

In your next commercial I think you should have a man doing the cleaning. The mop or broom can sing the song "Come Back To Me " by Vanessa Hudgens. (I'm not saying that you should actually do that song, because they might not be able to get permission to use it.) It would just be nice to see the genders reversed and have a girl mop singing to a guy using a Swiffer.

It's also pretty creepy that the joke of the commercials is that your mop or broom are following you around. They're kind of stalking you. Why would anybody want that? Imagine if it was your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend doing that? Would you want that to happen? I dont think so. It's not funny, it's scary.

It happens to real people and it's not good to make a joke about something serious that happens to real people, just so you can sell a stupid Swiffer.

Her very first guest blog about sexism in the media... I'm so proud!

- Lilith (of theEvil Slut Clique)

Please pardon the second post in one month. SPOILERS for last season of Boston Legal.

I just finished watching the episode titled "Roe" from the 5th and final season of Boston Legal. I usually admire their antics and amusing characters, however this episode really angered me. This episode started out promising. A teenage Chinese immigrant comes to Alan Shore hoping to get approval from a judge for an abortion. Her state requires parental consent and her mother said no. Alan takes the case. He believes in a woman's right to her body, especially a girl whose future would be crushed if she were to raise a child.

We at WVFC have been excited about Maria Shriver's A Woman's Nation project, which is being highlighted this weeek on NBC-TV. (At the bottom of the post, see Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm talk to Shriver on the Today Show.) Look here tomorrow for word from our own Diane Vacca, evaluating the new report issued this week by Shriver and her team.

Now, via our sisters at Women's Media Center , we offer some words on the project from the woman who first taught many of us to stand up for our place in the world. Read below (including the link to WMC), and then let us know in comments: Do you think she's right? What do you hope the Shriver report will do? How do you plan to be included? (Ed.)

You're going to be seeing a multimedia blitz about a new national study of women's status called The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything. Gloria Steinem gives you a preview of this project created by Maria Shriver and a D.C. think tank, and suggests ways you can use it and also judge its success.

For the first time in the history of the United States, half of all people on payrolls are women. This big landmark is the centerpiece of The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything , a newly released 400-plus page study that includes a national poll of changing attitudes among women and men, and two dozen essays from experts on various aspects of women's status, provided free office space and other in-kind support, will make it the subject of a week of television programming.

Read more at Women's Voices For Change.

Care of Media Matters, a smattering of the attacks launched on Olympia Snowe and (to a lesser extent) Susan Collins, otherwise known as The Only Marginally Sane Republican Senators.

Can these old bastards just die of a hate overdose already and let the adults run the show?

I'm always frustrated and saddened at victim-blaming, but it's especially disheartening to see it from a woman, on a woman's website, by an advice columnist.

There is so much wrong with the response that she gives to the first letter writer, and most of it has been detailed in the 8 pages of comments. But what is most frustrating to me is the blatant passive-aggression of Ms. Rosenfeld's response. She won't come right out and say that the letter writer is lying. She just hints at it with extremely condescending phrases ("Only you can know"). It reminds me nothing so much of media coverage of rape trials ("So you were drunk, and wearing revealing clothing? Hmm."). Regardless of whether this woman was sexually assaulted or not, she was still the victim of a crime, and a common one at that. 

Almost more disturbing is Ms. Rosenfeld's response.

In yet another example of passive-aggression, Ms. Rosenfeld presents a non-apology; essentially "I'm sorry for those of you who were offended - clearly you didn't get it. But hey, at least I got a debate going!" 

Aside from the victim-blaming, Ms. Rosenfeld's ideal of female friendship seems at best incredibly limiting and at worst indicative of every negative stereotype about female friendship - that we are catty and shallow, and that we spend most of our time talking about boys. It isn't any wonder, from someone who wrote a book called I'm So Happy For You, the title written with obvious sarcasm as the content is about jealousy between "best friends."

Obviously there are more important issues, and I think many on this site don't expect much from Double X anyway, but please take the time to make your voice heard anyway - someone who gives irresponsible, un-empathetic  advice that peddles in the worst stereotypes of women should not have a column on website that purports itself to be for women.

As I type this, I just finished rolling my eyes at yet another commercial with a man telling a woman her spaghetti-and-meatball dinners on Wednesdays are boring and only good enough for the dog, so she should get Old El Paso. Of course, there is no husband present during this exchange, much less one who would make the damn dinner himself. This is, of course, just one example. Every single commercial these days about cleaning products, laundry detergents, or anything to do with household chores, features women doing all the housework in question. Not. One. Guy. I seem to recall one or two men pushing a Swiffer mop on television something like five years ago. They are gone. Perhaps forever?

What's up with advertisers, anyway? You'd think with a divorce rate of 50 % overall and 65 % for couples married five years or less, a separation rate of 75 % for live-in couples and a break-up rate of who knows how much for people just "in a couple" in general, for all genders and sexual orientations, there would be a demographically significant bunch of guys out there who need to do their own floors, or at least nuke their own frozen dinners. No?

Who writes these things anyway??? It's a bloody epidemic.

Being very un-movie-oriented and slow on the uptake, I watched 13 Going On 30 for the first time this weekend. My two girlfriends told me it was an absolute must-see, and that the ending was “really cute.”

Okay, I’ll give them that. It’s a cute ending. The main character ends up with the guy she has loved all along, and everything is all perfect and happy and such. But, being the cynical and analytical person I am when it comes to chick flicks, I was not satisfied. While my two friends were “Awww!”-ing their way through the movie, I still had questions that needed answers.

I'm really curious who's in charge of Comedy Central's programming decisions.

This is Comedy Central's newest show. If it was on at 2 am as an experiment to draw the 18-25 stoner male crowd, I could understand it. But if you're a CC viewer, even if only for the Daily Show/Colbert Report, there's no way you could have missed the insane amount of promotion this thing has been getting. And if you wondered, "Geez, that program looks so stupid there almost has to be something else to it," there's not.

Here's the gist:

The camera is you. You roll around with your two best friends, who can't think about anything other than getting laid. You have a lunatic ex-girlfriend and a new sane girlfriend the ex doesn't know about.

That's basically it. And in and of itself, this premise isn't exactly atrocious. Plays on stereotypes and whatnot, but if you do it right that's no big deal.

It's not done right. I can't even say it's done wrong; that would suggest whoever wrote it was trying. It's essentially a half-hour (in what glimpses I could make myself watch- the stupidity was hurting my brain) of the two best friends dragging the camera along, trying to get girls in skimpy clothing to wear less than the skimpy clothing, and that's it. And I specify that the camera is getting dragged along for a reason- they talk to the camera like it's you, but unless you can really get your mind into the concept of being a mute bodiless thing on a leash, it doesn't click at all.

Here's a shorter explanation: Remember that Carl's Jr. commercial with Audrina Partridge in the bikini that pissed some people off? It's a half hour of that, minus the smidge of clever wordplay.

Honestly, I'm not even sure what I think posting about this will do. Maybe it's because there are some people here who take complaining to businesses seriously and may let Comedy Central know how ridiculous and insulting this is. But I'm cynical to the point where the aforementioned CJ's commercial didn't trip me out one bit. I see stuff referenced all over this site that I know and believe is screwed up, but I have a hard time being outraged because the world has so much worse waiting in the wings. And yet I have to say something about this because, beyond the meat market premise, it's so revoltingly stupid.

If this was on Spike, I wouldn't care. I would expect it there. But Comedy Central? Their worst decisions tend to be giving stand-up comedians their own shows. The most "controversial" fare they serve up that I can think of is Drawn Together, which, while not for everyone, is pretty brilliantly done for what it is. And now they've made a show that can't even pretend to hope it will pull more than five female viewers in any given week. Even if loads of young, scantily-clad females don't bother you- even if you like it- the first-person perspective is set up in such a way that it's almost impossible to envision more than a severe minority of women actually getting something out of this show at all. That's a hell of a demographic to ignore.

And one night a week, this is the new lead-in to Jon Stewart.

Just... wow.

Does this make anyone else angry? There's a new application for the iPhone called "Before You Score" by Amp energy drink (owned by Pepsi). It gives guys and instant guide on how to manipulate a girl and get into her pants, narrowed down to any stereotypical label that the targeted girl seems to fit. It's been critiqued already in the social media world for alienating female customers. I think that's an understatement. Just another reason I'll choose Coke products, I guess.

Here's the article about it on Mashable.com

Originally posted at jennyknopinski.wordpress.com Some soup is for men. This soup is hearty and filling. It will give you energy for sports and extreme outdoor adventures. Men love full stomachs and sports!

Some soup is for women. This soup is healthy and will help you lose weight. Women love natural ingredients and being thin!

Sometimes, as a woman in charge of feeding a man, you want him to eat healthy soups. To accomplish this you must trick or force him into eating the healthy soup. He would obviously never make this choice on his own.

Class dismissed! You may adjourn to the cafeteria to eat your gender appropriate soups!

Today, Michael David Barrett was released on bond for secretly taping a nude Erin Andrews through a peephole he made in her hotel wall. Police report that he has eight total videos of Andrews, as well as 30+ of other women, taped in similar peephole fashion. He is facing criminal charges of stalking, due to his habit of following her across the country and calling hotels to ask if she'd be staying there. Some of them ACTUALLY GAVE ANSWERS. Most disturbing to me is the fact that, at the particular hotel in question for this case (for being the site of the leaked video), the defendant specifically requested to be in the room next to Andrews (asking for her by name), and the hotel OBLIGED.

I am female... just ask the guys I've... well, nevermind. But apparantly I'm not because, all the stereotypes of geeks and anime fans only seem to include boys. Or insist that female otaku are some kind of lesbian? Even when intellectuals are made fun of, women are not included in the groups singled out. It makes no sense...

It's no longer the 1800's, and yet it seems that the male establishment is still threatened by the idea of women with minds... Girls are ok on the internet only if they're naked in pictures and videos, not heard as human beings with ideas on blogs and forums. I know, through personal social experience, that there are loads of girl manga, comic book, anime, and sci-fi fans.

Why Disney thought it's buying of Marvel would only lure boys to the Maus' lair is a common mistake by marketers, who assume that the only people capable of (possibly because women are supposedly dumber or only concerned with stories about the Princesses they've been whoring to the public for the last few years) being audiences for these kinds of stories. My beef with Marvel is that they turned Spider-man, a hero with a badass premise and cool powers, into a Shinji-like, self-loathing adolescent wuss who WONDERS WHETHER OR NOT TO EVEN BE SPIDER MAN!!!! Like, seriously, dude? You have cool powers and the ability to save people, what's to wonder about? I watched all three Spiderman movies and found myself often getting mad at the screen when they did that. But I digress....
Content analysis of every bit of joking or derisive commentary on the internet aimed at smart people, introverts and their un-social subcultures, or fans of a certain thing are often devoid of the recognition of female participants in said groups. Sure, girls can be in the shallow, fashion-centered subcultures like emo, scene, etc. But in the more mental ones - these groups are designated for men.

In America, the usual notion of "girlhood"( which is really "womanhood", you fucking pedophiles,) does not include anything to suggest that the "girl" has a brain with anything on it other than unicorn farts,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCF3ywukQYA and wedding-day related obsessions.

In some ways, one of the best things about the brand of communism practiced in China and previously in Soviet Russia was its recognition of equality for women. This makes economic sense, in the cold, hard, economic facts, it makes more sense to treat around half the population as "workers", not "dependents on male workers". Which system do you think will develop a country faster and do more good when it comes to meeting the needs of the people? Maybe the reason some countries are having so much trouble industrializing and developing their infrastructure is the misogyny of their cultures... The economy in the U.S. became a powerhouse when women entered the factories in the 1940's, and declined when women largely moved back to servile, domestic positions. 

Maybe also, companies could spend less money on ads that make fun of women, or make us look stupid, and more ads that make us feel valued, intelligent, and worthy as human beings. I mean, what happened to the softer side of Sears?

by Judy Orlando

I was thrilled to read Judith Warner’s column in the September 24 New York Times ("The Real Cougar Fans" ripping the new cougar ethic. Personally, I am appalled by courgardom – not by its age reversal (who cares about age and gender disparities if they work?), but by its stalker aspect: Since when does a woman, particularly a gorgeous one with a wealth of experience, have to use teeth and claws to get her man?

Wit, charm and money, sure (never held back a young person, either), but slashing? (For the record, I don’t think teeth and claws are useful man-tools, either.) If you're looking for sex and you subdue a guy, or just overwhelm him, he’s going to wilt, and that’s not helpful. And everyone knows, if you’re looking for romance – well, stalking your kill just won’t do.

Why on earth are cougars catching on? Does anyone care? Does anyone want to be one?

Continue reading and share your thoughts at Women's Voices For Change

When I heard about the new Forbes Woman I was ecstatic; but then I actually read one of the articles. And then another. And another. Alas, my ecstasy waned.

Maybe it was because of "The Perfect Interview Outfit", which informed me I should avoid looking "frumpy" if I want to find a job. Or it could have been because of the article "Cleaning Crew" that utilized a metaphor of women cleaning house to illustrate how women are cleaning up the economy- because apparently, I can't understand the concept of the head of the FDIC calling for a halt on home foreclosures unless you tell me it's like she "grabbed the mop."

And then there was "Women's Achilles Heel: The Vision Thing", which informed me that women are great leaders; except it seems they lack vision. How do they know this? A survey measuring perceptions of female and male executives backed up by a few anecdotes. Since when did correlation become equal to causation? Newsflash: it didn't. Cultural attitudes towards men and women differ greatly; I don't think it would be out of line to say this probably played a role in the survey results. For example, when women exhibit the same behavior as men who are seen as confident or assertive, the women are often described as aggressive or bitchy. Perceptions are not isolated, objective observations- they are subjective, dynamic, and formed in a particular context.

And yet more disappointment followed with "Women Vs. Men: Handling Economic Stress" by Kiri Blakely. Blakely discusses what she terms econocide- suicide motivated by the economic collapse. She notes that recently four corporate big-wigs from around the world, all of whom were men, killed themselves after losing a whole lot of money. In explaining the gender difference in suicide rates Blakely writes "A big part of this discrepancy is that men use much more successful methods of suicide." She quotes a psychotherapist to back up her story, "Women might make gestures that are not as strong, that are more a cry for help or attention." Apparently, even when it comes to suicide, men are more successful and women are looking for attention.

The Tucker Max film I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell has drawn a lot of controversy , regarding everything from the subject matter of the film , to the ad campaign . Max and his supporters maintain the protesters are “kooky activists bullying the media into propagating a minority viewpoint” by manipulating his work because they can’t take a joke. All this controversy begs the question, where is your line on comedy? The following are a compilation of responses from various men and women, most of whom belong to Max's intended target demographic.

Carmen Rios, a 19-year-old undergrad, part of Max’s intended target demographic, called the ads “disrespectful and callous.” Dan Wald, in his early 20s, said the ads frustrate him as a man, because “a few men are hurting the whole, hurting our gender and women fear us for it.” Wald called the ads “hate speech that promotes violence.” Ben Siegel, also in his 20s, said the ads “promote violence against women” and “promulgate a dangerous, misogynistic attitude.”

When asked about Max’s response that the activists can’t take a joke, John Foubert, author of The Men's Program: A Peer Education Guide to Rape Prevention , stated, “His [Max’s] dismissal of his statements as being ‘just a joke’ suggest to me that either he is incapable of empathy - or that he has no conscience - both high risk factors for [committing] rape. Either way, women, and people who care about them, should be deeply concerned about this man and his statements.”

Contrary to what Warner Brothers might have you think, apparently you can get a man with a gun. As a little girl, I watched a depressed Betty Hutton sing "Oh, you can't get a man with a gun" in the classic 1950 film, Annie Get Your Gun. Although I knew Annie Oakley was an actual historical figure, I never gave much thought to the film's historical accuracy. I recently discovered just how far from history the classic musical had wandered.

The film version of Frank Butler's character finds Annie Oakley's superior talent and country-bumpkin ways disturbingly unfeminine until Annie deliberately loses to him in a shooting match. Now that he's defeated her, he magically realizes his undying love; they marry and live happily ever after. In short, if you want a man to fall in love you- don't emasculate him by being better at anything.

It seems the real Frank Butler was not so chauvinistic. In fact, quite to the contrary of the film's premise, his losing a shoot-out to Oakley was the catalyst for their entire relationship. Was it really necessary to mangle a true love story that has an empowered woman at its focus into a fictional sexist treatise on how women should behave if they want to find love?

This Friday, a writer from the Chicago Tribune is scheduled to go out with Tucker Max for an article.  Before then, I would like to provide this writer with some helpful insight and zingy questions to ask Tucker.  Specifically, I think it would make an interesting article to get to the bottom of his "Its a joke " theory.

What questions would you like to ask Tucker Max?  Help me brainstorm and I"ll pass them along!

I just want to alert the femininisting commnunity to HerStoria - a new, independent magazine of women's history. Why's it needed? Because popular history magazines are still skewed towards men's stories and interests. Despite women's and gender history making it into universities, it is not so well talked about beyond.

HerStoria looks at the past from a female view and, like a kaleidoscope, everything changes. Even accepted historical periods and categorisations become unsettled. Women's history is by its very nature is feminist; we celebrate women and examine the issues.

HerStoria is produced in the UK. You can find out more and subscribe at www.herstoria.com

First things first. Oprah Winfrey is an amazing woman. She gets people excited about reading, started her own school, and on and on. She does wonderful things.

But I was dismayed to see Oprah's intense passion when talking about Jaycee Lee Dugard during her promotional press conferences for the start of her new season. "This is the one that I want," she told television's "The Insider." Oprah was practically salivating over the possibility of this once in a lifetime scoop. "I want that interview," she said once more. Really? You purposely want this young victim to talk about her trauma to the whole world?

I understand that this is a huge story. Dugard's rescue is a story that interests countless people. But it's also a story of imprisonment, rape, abuse, terror, and a lost childhood. I am glad we haven't seen what Dugard looks like today. I'm glad we don't know where she and her daughters are. I hope we never know. I hope her family, counselors, and psychologists are able to shield her from the questions, the press, the news media following her every move.

This was an 11-year-old girl who disappeared. She lived with her kidnapper for 18 years and fathered his two children. We don't know what she began to believe after years of imprisonment or how she mentally coped with the torture.

I don't want Jaycee to have to explain what happened, talk about giving birth, or talk about living in a shed. I don't want her words to be turned into sound bites on "Entertainment Tonight" and "Access Hollywood." I don't want Oprah (or anyone) leaning forward in their chair, face filled with concern, eyes open wide, and asking, "What was it like?"

Of course, Dugard must answer questions from the police and hopefully she's surrounded by a group of therapists and counselors to help guide her. But these conversations should be conducted in private, not on a sound stage with someone fixing her makeup under the heavy lights. There are times when television shows and reporters need to realize that not getting the "exclusive" interview is actually a positive thing.

by Adria Quinones Pretty good discussion in the Daily News on the Serena Williams rant at the US Open.

Williams behind the racket at the Australian Open

For six years now, Serena Williams has been an overbearing study in underachievement at Flushing Meadows. She has had legitimate alibis along the way, from injury to personal tragedy, but still the U.S. Open failures mounted, the stomping of sneakers didn't help, and there was no explaining all of this away. How does somebody of such obviously superior skills fail to reach so much as a semifinal at her home major, on a surface tailored to her ferocity?

It is an issue she may not need to address for some time, because Williams has emerged again from the untalented masses of the WTA Tour, at long last. Serena can make a lot of ghosts and grumps disappear with one more victory here. She can capture her ninth major, her third Open title and the No. 1 ranking with one scoop of her racket. And then it will be hard for anyone to say that tennis' de facto monarch, the drama queen, is not living up to expectations.

It wasn't that long ago that women were required to play in skirts . I think that Serena Williams has pushed the envelope on being a woman in tennis, from what she wears to how she looks (remember the comments on her biceps ?). As noted last month by Abena Agayen-Fisher , Williams responded last year by talking frankly to People Magazine about her own body image issues_ emphasizing that "I want women to know that it's okay. You can be whatever size you are, and you can be beautiful both inside and out. We're always told what's beautiful and what's not, and that's not right.”

Continue reading at Women's Voices For Change.

I was reading this article (and the Shakesville post about this article)

So what does this have to do with video games? Well, some video games allow the player character to have sex with NPCs; even more allow the player to have romantic relationships with NPCs. What the vast majority of these games inevitably do is present relationship mechanics that distill the commodity model down to its essence—you talk to the NPC enough, and give them enough presents, and then they have sex with/marry you.

I've seen a lot of people getting up in arms about this, and I don't really see why. As far as I can tell, there's no way to model virtual sexual or romantic relationships in a video game* without falling back on some sort of relationship point system (as one of the commenters says, the AI can't gauge your heart and soul but it can track your responses to it). Even if you're just talking to the NPCs (as in Jade Empire or the Baldur's Gate series), the game is keeping score. In most cases, this "love-as-commodity-system" in games is used in an attempt to replicatethe development and progress of a real relationship in virtual form (for which all the presents and such basically serve as a metaphor of sorts). Such as in the Harvest Moon games, where you see the girl gradually go from being indifferent to you to friendly to loving you as her heart level increases. Or in innumerable dating sims and virtual novels where your choice determine which girl you end up with and/or what story path you follow.

Thing is, almost everything in games require a commodity model of behavior. That's the very nature of the medium. Few people will perform a task in a game if there's no reward for it (be it gold, experience, items, or even just advancing the story)...

Two relevant comments from the article:

The problem with videogames is that they cannot offer what is experienced and sought-after in real-life relationships (e.g. long-term companionship, moral supports, trusts, social partnerships) whenever players interact with NPCs, so they instead need to reward players with something more tangible and visible.

In a weekly sound-and-image series called "One in 8 Million," the New York Times tells just some of the city's untold stories. This week it shares, with respect and poignancy (yay!), the story of a transwoman, Pepper Harris, who sleeps during the day and stays up all night.

Check it out.

(You may need to sign up for a free account on NYtimes.com to see this - I promise it takes all of 10 seconds and you're good to go.)

One of my first posts during my Feminist Gamers days was a review of gender roles and sexism in the Zelda Video Game series. With the recent news sparking a new round of discussion about Nice Guys™ (including the Penny Arcade debacle), I've been doing a bit of thinking about the relationship between Link and Zelda in the context of this ugliness.

As someone who has been a part of the online gaming community for some time now, I can tell you that it's often been a popular refrain in the gaming community that Link, the Hero of Time, the keeper of the Triforce of Courage, goes through hell and back again and again for Zelda and she doesn't even put out.

Now, the online gaming community only manages to out-perform its misogyny with its unoriginality. And I could dig up some examples of this but frankly I'm lazy and I'm writing this on a bit of a time table so you'll just have to trust me on this: inevitably in a discussion about the relationship between Link and Zelda, you'll get some braying jackass thinking he's terribly clever for pointing out that Link probably has a pretty serious case of the blueballs right about now.

In July, Samhita posted a "Friday Feminist Fuck You" about Regina Benjamin and the fat haters. Today I was thrilled to see that The Obesity Society has taken a stand on the criticism of Regina Benjamin relative to her weight. Here is the link to the statement:

I could not have said it better myself.

For those not familiar with The Obesity Society, they are a scientific society dedicated to the study of obesity.

Last night, the fourth season of America’s Best Dance Crew premiered, featuring a wide variety of dance groups who were nothing short of amazing. Host Mario Lopez and the three judges (N’Sync’s JC Chasez, hip hop star Lil’ Mama, and choreographer Shane Sparks) boasted about the diversity of crews this season.  One crew, Vouge Evolution, brought a lot to the table dance-wise, offering a glimpse into voguing and ‘ballroom’ culture in New York’s queer scene, which has been around long before Madonna adapted/appropriated/featured/celebrated the style in the 90s. Vogue Evolution is a crew made up of gay men of colour and one trans woman of colour. The video montage prior to their first performance provided them a candid opportunity to speak about identity. Leiomy Maldonado self identifies as a trans woman and volunteered to explain her identity - the result was a beautiful snapshot of her reality, expressing that although society wanted her to be one way, transitioning has ultimately been a very positive experience in her life. Vogue Evolution goes on to say that they are on the show to compete and break down barriers. They went on to serve the audience a high energy performance that was authentic to their style and was unapologetic, to say the least.

Like other dance shows, the judges, at times, have proclaimed their desire to see ‘guys dance like guys’ with Shane Sparks often leading the charge. Last night was different. Other than one audience pan, which featured a man standing up waving his hand and gesturing Vogue Evolution off the stage, the crew was cheered as hard as all the other crews, and their performance was hailed by the judges. Even host Mario Lopez stated, ‘I love me some Vogue Evolution’. Shane Sparks even remarked that he had been told for years that voguing needed the spotlight and went on to give his praises. All I could think afterward was, ‘Hell ya!’.

I am mindful that an MTV dance show is a platform that may let us down at some point, potentially pigeon holing queer performers as fit entertainers but not equal persons, but for now I optimistically withhold my cynicism. Vogue Evolution won their chance to move on to the next episode by placing in the top two-thirds of the nine crews. One of the running themes of the show is the mutual respect the crews have for one another, often citing common class, race, and gender struggles. When Vogue Evolution won over another crew, the theme carried through; members of both crews were seen hugging, shaking hands, and congratulating one another. No one skipped a beat.

Dance shows are sweeping the airwaves. In Canada, we are about to have a season of So You Think You Can Dance Canada, the American version of the same show, and America’s Best Dance Crew all airing at the same time. Youth and many adults will be glued to these programs. In the past we’ve seen strict gender roles enforced in dance pairings and style expectations, and this is very likely to continue. I believe we are moving forward - never quickly enough - but tonight I felt vindicated. I saw a program including gender identity and sexuality, especially those of people of colour, as a legitimate form of oppression that is on par with the struggles of other groups. I saw a group of queer people of colour serve it, serve it hard, and be celebrated. Moreover, millions of young people saw the same thing. So the one man who chose to stand up and wave Vogue Evolution off the stage got one huge hand waving him back into his seat, and for that, I can only celebrate. 

I've been astounded lately by how many articles have been posted on the main page and on the community board about how Lady GaGa is not really a feminist.

I'll expose my bias right away by admitting I do not understand the nature of looking up to celebrities. Lady GaGa's job is to make music and sing and dance and entertain us with her glitter and her disco sticks. Somewhere along the way in the entertainment business, doing these sorts of things also became about obsessing over the person behind the music (or movies, or television shows, take your pick). For some reason, they're considered role models and people who might say things worthy of our attention that have nothing to do with their singing or their acting.

Part of that comes with a joy on the consumer's part for tearing these people down. No one gets ridiculed more than singers and actors, and it's often said that they're fair game for attacking because, hey, they put themselves out there, didn't they? So the comments threads on all the Lady GaGa blog posts have been filled with people sneering at her and her stupidity and lots of writing her off as someone not worthy of our time.

In the newest What We Missed blog post on the main page, a lot of commenters have been discussing the Psychology Today article written by an evolutionary psychologist who completely. There's been some praise and applause for the rebuttal to that article, which is here.

In this article (which is FABULOUS), the author details how she went from being an, "I'm not a feminist, but..." to claiming the label for herself. She also explains how so many of her female students do the same thing -

I see, rather remarkably, my female students going through the same sorts of trials and self-examinations today in spite of the fifteen years of feminism that have passed. Some of these women students are planning to go to medical school. Some are engineering majors. They are track stars or nationally-ranked basketball players. These young women certainly work hard, compete fiercely and are not embarrassed about admitting that their goals are high. They work to put themselves through school. Most of them aren't considering getting married until they're several years into their chosen professions. Most of them leave home after graduation to make their way in cities across the country to find interesting, challenging jobs.

Yet when I ask how many of them consider themselves feminists, only about a third in any one class will dare to raise their hands. These women may not be afraid of getting bad scores on the LSATs or GREs, but they're afraid of not getting a date. They can be independent, intelligent and proud to be women. But a little word like "feminism" scares them. One girl, a student who'd taken two women-and-literature classes with me said that she loved the material, that the books had changed how she thought about herself and her relationships with men. We were having coffee in my office while discussing the subversion of the marriage plot in the contemporary woman's novel when I mentioned something about being pleased that her feminist perspective was being finely delineated by her careful work on the novel. "Oh, but I'm not a feminist," she said, surprising me, "I don't like that word." I gulped, and felt that whatever work I'd done in class I'd obviously missed out a crucial discussion.

Why are so many women afraid to call themselves feminists? It is because they fear the condemnation of experts such as Satoshi Kanazawa?

This, which I see reflected in so many women in my own life, makes all the hullabaloo over Lady GaGa stupid and misplaced. Lady GaGa is not special in her delusions about what being a feminist is about. She is not, along with other Hollywood starlettes that have been torn apart on this site, a lone idiot who just doesn't get it.

So are we also sneering at the 2/3 of the women in the professor's class who didn't raise their hands? Are we writing off her student who she had coffee with who, after being enlightened by the class, still refused to accept the f-word? Somehow, I think not, since they don't share that magical celebrity quality that Lady GaGa has. It's not quite so fun to be meanspirited when it comes to women who we might encounter in our classrooms, our offices, and our personal lives.

What can we, as feminists who are not afraid of claiming the label, do to attack this widespread misunderstanding? What sort of implications does this misunderstanding have outside of the glitter and disco sticks?

"Mouthpiece Theater" was a goofy idea, and I never got more than a chuckle out of it.  Milbank and Cillizza don't have the timing necessary for performance comedy and their columns didn't translate well to video. The "Mad Bitch" joke was inappropriate, not funny, and deserved censure.

That said, I am truly bummed that so many people now know and dismiss Milbank as "that asshat who made the Mad Bitch joke." I have been a Dana Milbank fan for several years. I love his "Washington Sketch" column and I look forward to his weekly live chats. Milbank is an intelligent and talented writer. He exposes political hypocrisy and posturing with greater detail and nuance than either Stewart or Colbert. He covers press conferences and Senate votes that aren't sexy enough for a comedy show. For instance, the recent vote on conceal-carry rights had representatives scurrying in and out of the Chamber, changing their votes and bolting, terrified of the NRA's wrath. The instance doesn't easily compress into a 10 sec bit, but it's a relevant portrayal of Our Government In Action and Milbank DID cover it. (I'm not making an "either/or" argument here. I'm a fan of "The Daily Show" AND "The Washington Sketch," and I think I'm better off for following both.)

At the risk of repeating myself, I am NOT endorsing the "Mad Bitch" joke. It was insulting and not funny. But as a journalist and humorist, Milbank is way more than this one bad decision. While he deserves to be called out for his error in judgment, I believe he also deserves to have at least one voice speak in his defense.

 I've been thinking a lot about comedy over the past year and the very fine line that divides what is finding empowerment through using comedy in order to shed light on serious issues and what crosses the line to down right offensive and harmful.  After reading Jessica's post, What's so Funny About Rape? , and the comments that preceded it, I have a few things that I would like to say in response to this very important, complex issue.  The media is always a reflection of the prevalent social belief systems of the time.  Here, the line becomes blurry where it's almost a "chicken or the egg" scenario.  The media may be a reflection of current belief systems, but we also develop our own belief systems through the influence, whether we like it or not, from the media.  Unfortunately, a large portion of society does not implement critical thinking skills when surfing the tube, and I think it becomes risky when shows like Family Guy and comedians like Jim Jeffries joke about very serious, real-life circumstances.  I do watch Family Guy pretty frequently, but I have a hard time with it, because most of the time, the jokes are at the expense of marginalized groups, especially women.  Although Family Guy certainly utilizes the stereotype of the dumpy, idiot husband as well (check out Sarah Haskin's from Target Women's take on this ). 

     As for Jim Jeffries and the like, joking about rape only reinforces the notion that it is permissable and funny.  I imagine that if women were joking about men being raped, men would not find it so humerous.  Although when men joke about other men being raped, it is usually at the expense of the gay community.  Until we see the criminal justice system taking crimes of domestic and sexual violence more seriously and witness a decrease, rather than increase, of rates of rape cases, these comedians should rethink their tactics.  By making light of sexual violence, young girls and women may even internalize these jokes and not take seriously their own experiences with sexual and domestic violence.  These comedians are devaluing the reality that women are being subjected to serious violence every day and perpetuating stereotypes and stigmas that society still desperately clings to. 

     Also I want to point out that this is especially a concern when we think about children.  Kids soak up anything and everything in their enviornment, and without the help of conscientious parent/guardian/teacher guidance, they will internalize these messages from the media.  They do not necessarily have a sensor yet to separate comedy from reality.  I think this results in the formulation and internalization of stereotypes and the sexist, racist, ableist, etc.. belief systems that these stereotypes are born from.

     I understand that comedy oftentimes utilizes shock value for its effectiveness.  Unfortunately, there is not an obvious answer to this problem.  I do think that it is a tragedy when people find it necessary to only make jokes at the expense of someone else's oppression and pain.  Comedians like Margaret Cho do an excellent job of being funny and bringing up serious issues without being offensive, so at least there are success stories!  I welcome any constructive feedback from the readers.  Thanks!  

"Fox will not air Family Guy abortion episode according statement from network."

Now, I absolutely love Family Guy. However, analyzing the contents of Family Guy, Fox couldn't have come shorter from the racist sexist channel it is. Family Guy has a pedophile/rapist Quagmire, a pedophile, a child who is abusive, manipulative and wants to kill his mother, an inattentive, selfish and maybe alcoholic father, a daughter who is ridiculed and the only time she is respected is when she becomes an object (as a blonde singer), but will not air an episode on abortion.

I find it disturbing that pedophilia, rape, and violence are all acceptable and not controversial subjects, but abortion is according to the network.

This New York Times Magazine article gave me serious pause. I'm familiar with otaku culture and its eccentricities. I even have some friends (both female and male) that are immersed in it. But pillow girlfriends, really? 

Whether the body pillows are "anatomically correct" or not, they represent characters who are between nine and twelve years old. A quarter of the Japanese population apparently remain virgins into their thirties, and the founder of the "2-D love movement" says that "Pure love is completely gone in the real world. As long as you train your imagination, a 2-D relationship is much more passionate than a 3-D one."

Sounds like a self-feeding phenomenon if you ask me. These men have such a rampant fear of women that they have wrapped themselves in an imaginary world where they can literally possess them, where they control every aspect of their behavior and appearance, because they are imaginary: "In Japan, it's not O.K. to like another person if you're already with somebody else. With an anime character, you can like one character one day and a different character the next."

Perhaps this is healthier because these men aren't objectifying real prepubescent girls this way, but I can't keep my stomach from churning. One of the businesses based around 2-D love is called Youkouro -which apparently transfers to "Furnace of Child Love."

Please tell me that I'm missing something here culturally, or that women do this as well. Please. 

For awhile on the Feministing community, I’ve noticed a great deal of commenting related to fandom. I think we all find ourselves enjoying different types of entertainment that call our philosophical ideals of feminism into question. I don’t feel like I have a lot of instances where my entertainment and social demands conflict; I insta ntly turn-off programming that heavily reinforces gender-normative roles, I won’t tolerate jokes from friends that inappropriately portray women or the LGBT community, and the final credits of The Hangover ruined the entire film for me. However, I love Lady Gaga, including her music, her method of performance, and her general persona.

I consider myself to be the type of feminist that doesn’t approve of images of beauty that reinforce unattainable, sexually-oppressive standards. I’m quick to label the behavior of women who engage in beauty-normative behavior as selfish or narcissistic. I am an anti-porn feminist, and that includes an opposition to strip clubs or even simple photographs in “lad mags” that don’t even include nudity. I also am opposed to images that reinforce sexual roles for women. I tend to follow Ariel Levy’s school of thought when it comes to “raunch culture.” While I know that sexuality is empowering for some women, I generally believe that the expectations that have been built up within raunch culture are just another slew of standards that keep women sexually oppressed. Women are often encouraged to be sexually appealing, but not sensual. The presentation of sexual behavior as enjoyable in ways other than fun, flirty, or cute are generally unseen in pop culture, save for a few daring women that people love to hate. This is where I believe Lady GaGa comes in, since her sexuality is usually self-appreciating and is often presented as unrelated to the pleasure of her male partner(s).

A combination of devil-may-care attitude and misandry, some of Lady GaGa’s messages seem to relate more to the pleasure and purpose of sex than attractiveness or appeal. Sometimes portraying herself as cruel or unfeeling, her lyrics suggest that she can enjoy sex in the way society has appropriated for men.

Here are some samples:

“I won’t tell you that I love you, kiss, or hug you. I’m not lying; I’m just stunning with my love glue-gunning.”

-Poker Face

“You’ve indicated your interest. I’m educated in sex (yes) and now I want it bad, want it bad. A love game, a love game.”

-Love Game

In the video for Paparazzi , GaGa is seen poisoning her boyfriend to regain fame and public interest. In a way, is this GaGa elevating a career above romance or simply elevating herself above her need for men?

In all honesty, I recognize the many ways that GaGa adheres to beauty standards and gender roles that are harmful to women overall, but I do question if her messages and personification of sex and lifestyle do anything to benefit women. GaGa has said, “ "It's all about starvation! Pop stars don't eat." However, she has also expressed her devotion to her career and rejection of priorities normally expected of women. Below is an interview in which GaGa expresses her desire for something different.

Is the work of Lady GaGa promotional of feminist ideals? Does it do anything to assist the progress of sexual liberation for women? Or is she just another pop-star? Does anyone else have a similar feeling or interest in other entertainers?

I recently attended an anime convention, one of the major conventions in the United States, and I did “cosplay” a character from a Japan-related film.  I was Pyramid Head from Silent Hill, the movie version released several years ago.

Now, while I did it for my own reasons, which include challenging myself technically and taking on my own body image issues, there were incidents I had while in costume which got me thinking.

As a full disclosure, I picked Pyramid Head because it was a technically difficult costume.  It’s not one you can buy in stores and requires a large amount of labor to be able to do well.  I wanted to do it well, and right, so I put a tremendous amount of effort into my costume.  It did pay off well, as I got a lot of attention for my costume including being called “the good Pyramid Head”.

There are aspects to his character that are less-than savory.

**TRIGGER WARNING**

Yesterday while at the gym I was listening to NPR and I heard this story, about a rather new computer game, The Path.  I am not really a gamer but I did enjoy Myst back in the day and it sounded interesting so I googled it.  I read some reviews and then I ended up downloading the Prologue, which is their substitute for a free demo.  I liked it so a bought the game.  

Warning: Please don't go buy this game until you read some reviews and at least listen to the npr story.  The NPR story does mention rape as one of the hinted at themes of the game and although I don't think the interpretation is so literal if you think you might want to pass this up please do so.

One of the creators is a woman, Auriea Harvey,  it has female main characters and it does seem to have a point.  It is very beautiful and it has kept my attention.  I haven't finished it yet so if there are "surprises" please don't spoil it for me but I would like to here some opinions.  

Is anyone out there playing this game?  Do you think it is expressive or exploitative? 

That's it, girls: no matter what you do or how far you get, you'll always be reduced to your parts.

At the G8 summit, a picture was taken -- in it, Barack Obama and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, seem to be staring at a girl's butt. Like any picture, the photo captures only one part of the scene. A video posted on You Tube shows that Obama wasn't actually looking at the girl. He was trying to help another woman while she was walking down the stairs. As for Sarkozy, not only he seems to behave inappropriately, he also laughed about the girl's derriére after she walked away.

The media explored the photo in such a disgusting way, treating the woman walking upstairs as just that -- a good looking butt. She doesn't even have a name. The only thing the international media says is that she's Brazilian, like me. Headlines say: "Brazilian woman turns the presidents' heads".

Brazilian women are constantly objectified. Latin american women, especially Brazilian, share this stereotype of the woman who's overly sexualized, constantly willing to have sex. We're usually depicted as the country of "samba, beaches and butts".

Maybe that's why my country is one of the champions of "sex tourism" (an eufemism used to describe illegal prostitution, especially child prostitution, for foreigners). Brazilian women traveling abroad are advised to lie about their nationality -- after all, some of us report being harassed after mentioning that. I, myself, had such an experience. And I didn't even have to get out of my city. Three years ago, I was at a bar celebrating my 18th birthday with my friends, when a swiss tourist approached me. After less than 5 minutes of conversation, the guy groped me and acted as if I was automatically willing to have sex with him.

Via Retro Comedy :

While it's no shock to find outdated gender roles, misogyny, etc., in this collection called "The 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads of All Time ," I really was surprised at how much these ads were able to surprise me.

Besides this "woman as fur rug" to sell men's pants, you'll find a wife getting spanked for lazy coffee shopping, unhappy marriage blamed on the woman's lack of practicing "female hygiene" with Lysol, and so much more. Virgin fetishes, murder- we've got it all. It's like a buffet of creepy. Seriously.

What is America's obsession with vampires? I'll admit, I've fallen into this obsession. It all started with Buffy , which I only started watching earlier this year, and now I'm into True Blood as well. There's also Twilight , which I have a weird fascination with as I've talked about before . As much as I love these vampire shows (Buffy and True Blood , that is), why is America obsessed with them? And why am I obsessed with them? (My obsession might have something to do with my obsession with pop culture and TV shows in general, but maybe it's something more too since America seems obsessed with them as well.)

I loved Buffy because the character was a strong woman who saved the world on numerous occasions which is such a rare occurrence in media today. Even though Buffy had the help of many strong men, she was the one in charge and the one who ultimately would save the day. True Blood centers around a strong female character, Sookie Stackhouse, and her relationship with a vampire, Bill. While Sookie often needs rescuing, she can stand up for herself. My weird obsession with Twilight has more to do with my lack of understanding for the obsession with the phenomenon. Bella is not strong, cannot stand up for herself, and constantly needs to be saved by Edward. And Edward is basically a creepy stalker. I prefer Buffy and True Blood because of the strong female characters, where as Twilight is a feminist nightmare. But why does America like vampires?

In the New York Times article "A Trend With Teeth ," Ruth La Ferla examines the appeal of vampires. She states,

The vampire’s attraction is “all about the titillation of imagining the monsters we could be if we just let ourselves go,” suggested Rick Owens, a fashion bellwether whose goth-tinged collections sometimes evoke the undead. “We’re all fascinated with corruption, the more glamorous the better” and, he added, with the idea of “devouring, consuming, possessing someone we desire.”

Dodai from Jezebel wrote a similar, yet feminist, article titled "Women Play Mostly Supporting Role Within Male-Dominated "Trend"" . To explain America's fascination with vampires, she proposes,

But in a new interview with True Blood series creator Alan Ball , he says: "Vampires are sex. Vampires basically arose in our time as a metaphor for sex. I mean, vampires are sort of the ultimate Romantic rock star, bad boy or girl fantasy."

So, if vampires are all about sex, it's no surprise that America has an obsession with them. Especially with the 'abstinence porn' that is Twilight . This series is all about sexual control, in a very sexualized way.

But why do we always see male vampires? Buffy had Angel and Spike. Twilight has Edward. True Blood has Bill and Eric. One of the few exceptions is the newly made vampire Jessica in True Blood , who is a whiny teenager who is still learning to control her impulses. There is also Drusilla in Buffy who is very mentally disturbed.

Why is it always the men that embody sex, dominate women, and possess others? Why can't women be in these powerful roles? And why is it that when women are vampires, as in Jessica and Drusilla, they are in some way less than the male vampires, whether through age and experience or mental capability?

"Bloodsucking is a boys world," according to the Jezebel article. It then goes on to describe the online phenomenon that was the video of Buffy 'dusting' Edward .

Jonathan McIntosh, who created the clip, says : More than just a showdown between The Slayer and the Sparkly Vampire, it's also a humorous visualization of the metaphorical battle between two opposing visions of gender roles in the 21ist century […] In the end the only reasonable response was to have Buffy stake Edward – not because she didn't find him sexy, not because he was too sensitive or too eager to share his feelings – but simply because he was possessive, manipulative, and stalkery.

I guess that what we need to combat the male domination of the vampire world is digitally created video of two different shows mashed together.

I wonder if a show or movie centering around a female vampire will ever be as popular as Buffy, Twilight, or True Blood ? Sure there are powerful female characters in two out of three of those, but they are not vampires. When will women be able to embody sex and sexuality like men as vampires?

I was idly flipping through the Target ad that comes with the newspaper today and noticed this advertisement. I took it out and scanned it. It's somewhat big, so I'll just give the link.

Notice that the ad for the bold-colored, action-associated product features a boy, while the light pink-colored, inactivity-associated product features young women. Sure, it's not the most offensive form of sexism in advertising today (not by a long shot) but it irked me a little to see this subtle affirmation that doing cool stuff with brightly colored things is "for boys" while relaxing and not doing much of anything on a light pink inflatable chair is "for girls."

Does this bother you guys at all or do you think things like this -- that is, things that aren't overtly and massively offensive -- should just be ignored?

Alright, I'm sure tons of you have seen it, or heard your friends rave about it or whine for hours on end about it...Transformers 2. (Don't read this if you haven't seen it?)

I'll admit, I am not necessarily a Transformers person- I've never seen the first one, and I only went to see the 2nd one because of the awesome action scenes and graphics and all that jazz. I kind of expected lots of sexist-ish stuff in it- especially the way my friends talked about Megan Fox- let me tell you, I was appalled. And movies don't usually bother me.

My biggest beefs:

Here is a letter I wrote to Seventeen after reading my sister's rubbish...

I used to absolutely love Seventeen magazine before I went away to college.  I have done a lot of thinking at school as to how our American society has developed into what it is today.

Upon my recent return to my house, I picked up this issue of Seventeen to see what my younger sister was taking into her head.  I can tell you I was more disappointed than ever to read the things that are deemed important, almost essential, to life by Seventeen.

I found it almost impossible to be affected by the "Body Peace Project" that takes up a mere page when every other page of the 3/4" seventeen-year-old's bible is filled with girls that are a 0, possibly a 2 if we are feeling progressive.  Is this supposed to be a serious attempt at teaching impressionable girls to accept themselves for who they are?

Hi all, this is my first community post. I've been thinking a lot lately about representation of women in genre fiction (science fiction and fantasy in particular). The notion of a "strong female character" is one that I see bandied about a lot, and two books I've read recently have made me question its relevance.

I recently read this article by Jackson Katz called "Eminem, Misogyny, and the Sounds of Silence."

He takes on the lyrics of Eminem's new album, but more importantly, addresses the *lack* of condemnation for Eminem's lyrics on the part of music critics.

I've included some of Eminem's lyrics that Katz pinpoints in his article at the bottom.

Katz points out that it should be impossible to ignore the implications of such lyrics, but even music critics, whose job it is to assess music, do not write a word about Eminem's misogynist music.

Some highlights from the article:

"Popular art succeeds, at least commercially, precisely because it resonates with a certain audience - for whatever reason - in a given cultural and historical context."

"Desensitization is one of the key effects of exposure to violence, both in media and real life."

"Is it going too far to suggest that when wealthy nations such as ours export music by the likes of Eminem to countries with that level of misogynous violence that we are practicing what might be considered a particularly insidious form of cultural imperialism?"

Some of Eminem's lyrics:

(**Trigger Warning**)

I am a big fan of anime, Japanese animation, because I love that it uses artwork and other startling visual media in order to tell the story. I have to admit that I was skeptical of checking out Avatar: The Last Airbender because it is produced in America (and would thus be more ethnocentric) and because it is geared towards children. Fortunately, others in my online anime communities have shared their love for Avatar , so my SO and I broke down and decided to check it out.

I am so glad I did. Not only is it visually stunning, funny, and filled to the brim with complex social issues, it's also a feminist cartoon. Be still my animation-loving heart. I'd like to share some of the reasons why I love Avatar so much. The following will contain some slight spoilers.

I could go on at length about the different aspects of that are truly great. I love that this story is not set in America. It is set in a kind of alternate universe that is distinctly Asian. Much of the costuming and character appearances show medieval Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian (among others that I'm not so quick to identify) influences. The diversity of the characters represented in this show is staggering. Not only are different ethnicities represented, but differing levels of disabilities are brought forth in major characters (one main character is blind, another more minor character uses a wheelchair). *A side note: This show is being made into a live-action movie by M. Night Shamalan, and there was a huge uproar in the Avatar community because nearly all of the actors cast were Caucasian. Way to totally leave out one of the best aspects of this show there, Mr. Shamalan. Blech.*

Best of all, the female characters are just as powerful as male characters. I've been so used to female characters merely playing second fiddle to the main male characters. Sometimes, the females get to be the "love interest," and sometimes they get to be the "healers." This show turns all of those tropes on their head! If I was a pre-teen when this show was popular, there is just so much that I would have been able to take from it in terms of pride and confidence in my abilities. Here is a video that contains a thumbnail representation of all of the main (human) characters:

I am so furious about this article (Slain mother's fate could teach victims a lesson) in today's Sun-Times that I am not sure I can even write a real post about it.  This columnist, Mary Mitchell, essentially blames the murdered woman because "the children will be left orphans" and she didn't divorce her husband soon enough to...avoid getting KILLED?  WTF? 

The whole column is about Irma Rodriguez and her faults.  Not about the psycho ex-Chicago cop who abused and allegedly murdered his wife.  Not about the kind of society where many women have no options but to stay with their abusers.  I am so disgusted, I can't even say anything else.  If any of you feel like contacting the Sun-Times, as I will be, here's the contact information:

Mary Mitchell: marym@suntimes.com

Sun-Times letters to the editor: letters@suntimes.com

My family's always been pretty loyal to NBC news, so after Katie Couric's very first broadcast on CBS, I went back. Today, however, I think maybe I should try watching CBS again, and giving her a bit more support. On Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch Blog, Mandi Bierly wrote about Couric's speech to the graduating class at Princeton. This is the part she excerpted:

I'm sure you are all graduating with big career goals. You may also have a dream of being married and having a family, and at some point the career may take a backseat. There is no more challenging, rewarding or important job than being a mom. I just want to say this -- sometimes dreams of domestic bliss are interrupted by reality. People get divorced. People die. You need to protect yourself. I was very happily married to a wonderful man. He was diagnosed with colon cancer and nine months later, he was gone. I was a single mom with two very young children. This was not part of the plan. Luckily, I had a career and therefore the financial independence to support my children. Many women in my situation are not nearly as fortunate. And while I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, I want you all to be prepared for the unexpected and approach some of the big life decisions you'll be making with your eyes wide open.

1. I love that she referenced Debbie Downer.
2. This really is a message that we don't hear enough of. My mom left the workforce after my youngest sister was born, and struggled to re-enter as my dad's job became less secure. As much as I know she loved being able to spend her days with my sister, and having the time to volunteer at our schools, my family is still paying for that time off financially. My mom lost seniority when she left, as well as increased vacation time and salary (she ended up returning to the company she had left).

You can read the whole speech here.

When my mom was a kid, she used to steal her brothers' comic books because the X-Men were more interesting than Archie. I thought that was awesome because it meant that we could talk about the ever-evolving plotlines. The significance of the fact that my mom didn't feel like there were comics "for girls" was totally lost on me.

Of course, as I've grown-up and fallen in and out of love with comics, I've come to realize what a strange world it is for girls. Initially I bucked at the idea that comics should change anything to appeal to girls, because, hey, I can read what the guys read! The repulsion at waist-to-hip ratios came later, along with a quest for a decent heroine storyline. Now, I ask myself which super heroines are empowered role models and which are objectified freak shows? Which storylines are femmed-down and which are girl friendly?

All of this brings me to news of a "fashion-friendly" comic from Marvel. From George Gene Gustines at themoment.blogs.nytimes.com:

[O]n August 26, Marvel Entertainment, the home of Spider-Man, will publish Models, Inc., a mini-series that unites the comic world’s most fashionable characters, including Millicent Collins, a.k.a. Millie the Model (born 1945), and Mary Jane (born 1965), the model-turned-actress who toyed with the heart of Peter Parker (Spider-Man). The runway walkers team up when Millie is accused of murdering a young set designer during New York Fashion Week.

So, Marvel is appealing to the Top Model demographic. Where does this fall? Is this the worst combination of super model meets comic wonderbody meets fluff? Does Marvel get points for paying more attention to the female audience?

If I had a daughter, I think I'd rather she read Archie, and that makes me so many shades of sad.

Here is a refreshing change from the overwhelming amount of sexist advertising we see daily. I love these commercials. They advertise to women not as "the other sex," but as "a consumer." They are also damn funny, and I think a lot of the humor has to do with the fact that they're not trying to dumb anything down by using only situations they think we can "relate to" as women; which, in the mind of the mass media, generally means unintelligent discussions of beauty, weight, crushes, relationships, marriage, mothering, gossip, and oh- chocolate. Both commercials talk to women like they are *gasp* normal people with *gaaaasp* a sense of humor. The second one also portrays a woman as an (hilarious) individual (not a stereotype) without making a big deal about it, like it's an anomaly. I approve.

Clear Blue Commercial:

Verizon Commercial:

I was surprised to read this AP story , and not for the events it covered.  The lede in reference:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A businessman and his girlfriend, whose bank accidentally handed them a $6.1 million credit line, have managed to flee the country with more than a third of the cash, the bank said Friday.

A businessman and his girlfriend... Okay, fair enough.  The businessman might have committed the heist and his girlfriend merely accompanied him in his flight. But, wait...

Westpac Bank said in a statement Friday that the couple, who ran a gas station in the North Island city of Rotorua, had a bank overdraft of New Zealand $61,000. On Thursday, the bank had mistakenly said the couple's overdraft was worth NZ$10,000.

But in formalizing this credit limit — meant for the gas station the couple ran — the bank accidentally opened a line of credit for NZ$10 million ($6.1 million), the statement said. Initial details from the bank indicated that money had actually been deposited into their account.

The gas station "the couple ran ." The "couple's overdraft." "Their " account.  Yet the story identifies him as a businessman and her as a girlfriend ?

The story goes on to clarify that the gas station was registered in the name of the "businessman" and another person not connected to the heist, and that the credit limit was meant for the business.  That the girlfriend has no legal rights to his part of the business does give the businessman more of a a vested interest in and accountability for it.  However, the article also infers that the account in question was a joint one and that the couple had equal culpability in the heist.  As well, the label of "businessman" does not necessarily infer business ownership, as seen in this AP story .  The fact that the couple both operated the gas station implies that each engages in business -- hence the definition of a businessman and businesswoman.  Instead, the girlfriend is denied any recognition of her contributions to the business and instead is identified only by her relationship to her boyfriend.  Somehow, I don't think that being just a girlfriend will influence the bank or the New Zealand courts to hold her any less accountable.

In the AP's defense, they probably just picked up this story from some other news organizaton and syndicated it.  I'm a reporter and the AP has picked up some of my stories before that they then made available to other newspapers, who rarely, if ever, credit the original writer and instead slap "AP" in the byline.  But with that AP attribution comes the ability to edit the story to meet AP standards, something the AP chose not to do in this case.  If I were on the AP copydesk, I'd make just one edit:

"A couple, whose bank accidentally handed them a $6.1 million credit line, have managed to flee the country with more than a third of the cash, the bank said Friday."

Because, really, the business is ancillary to the story.  Sure, the account in question was intended for the business he is a co-owner of, but both operated the business and the bank account belonged to both of them.

In the grand scale of gender relations, one lede in one brief news story is probably just a niggling detail.  But the media is one of the most influential forces in defining and mediating gender relations, and newspapers have an ethical obligation to report all news, even minor news, fairly, accurately and without bias.  That the AP is one of the largest shared media outlets in the world makes its duty even more imperative.

For shame, AP.  I expected better of you.

On May 15th, the advertising industry gathered for a giant collective pat-on-the-back, and to collectively exclaim "can you believe we actually convinced people to buy all that crap!?" - also known as the Clio Awards.  And since we are talking about the advertising industry, sexism was a main ingredient of many award-winning campaigns.  Below are some of my favorites:

Virgin Atlantic's "Love at first flight"
(sarcasm alert) Ah, the good old days: when cell phones were the size of bricks, when computer games made beep-beep noises, and when flight attendants were female, white, and "hot".  Note the not-so-subtle message all little girls want to be flight attendants when they grow up, and boys want to be pilots (and be flanked by "hot" flight attendants)

Esthe WAM Hair Removal Course "Beauty bowling"
This is a warning ladies - see how much damage that one stray hair might cause? Assuming, of course, that you throw yourself down a bowling lane in your bikini in order to win the pink lady bowling competition. 

Australian Tourism "Transformation"
Oh god, where do start?  So, I'll use basic arithmetic to express the two sexist messages of this ad (don't even get me started on the other sucky messages):
1)  woman + powerful job + inflexible boyfriend = woman - boyfriend = depressed woman + always rainy NYC
2)  woman - powerful job + child giving direction to her life = woman + boyfriend + happiness
Ugh.

What really gets me is this: on their website, the Clio organizers acknowledge the powerful impact advertising has on culture.  Yet despite this fact, they do not hesitate to honor sexist ads with the highest industry awards.  Yuck.


(For more examples of award-winning sexism, go to www.clioawards.com)

More adventures in Lady Advertising. The Mars company has developed a their first new chocolate bar in 20 years, it's called "Fling" and it comes in a pink, sparkely wrapper. The entire advertising campaign is not only super "girly," it's plenty skeevy:

Wrapped in a shiny pink and sliver package, this delicate "chocolate finger" is intended for women. The word "finger" is an industry term for a long, slim confection, Mars spokesman Ryan Bowling says, but with ads that invite you to "Pleasure yourself" in pink lettering, consumers might come to other conclusions.

The tag line on the package is "Naughty, but not that naughty." A TV spot starts with what looks like strangers having sex in a store dressing room.

NPR deconstructs the marketing for this new candy with Lisa Johnson. Currently the candy bar is only available in California, but you can find the (SUPER tasteful) commercial on YouTube. Cannot WAIT to see what Haskins does with this.

I know, I know, we're over the Miss California shit. But I watched The Daily Show from two days ago, and Jon Stewart got me going again. (I don't own a television so when I watched this episode on Hulu, it was the first time I'd seen Carrie Prejean on TV.)

So I'll make this short. Is there sexist language shaming Miss California? Yes. Do I feel bad for her? Not really. Because:

1. She has no sympathy for gay rights. And no real logic or argument behind her conviction that two people shouldn't be allowed to marry just because they're the same sex. Her "religious beliefs" don't count, as the bible in its English and Hebrew versions both never mention homosexuality (in fact, Hebrew is the Bible's orginial language and doesn't even have a word that means 'homosexuality,' in our view of word.)

2. She participates in a sexist society. "Beauty" Pagaents are sexist shit that reinfoce cultural norms about women and how women are supposed to look and behave. If you support sexism and patriarchy, then I really don't feel all that bad for you if you suffer from the downside of sexism (ex. slut-calling) in the end.

3. She's a misogynist. For the two above reasons combined, I really would call her a misogynist. (I do think that women can be misogynists. If that's not true, then how do you explain Ann Coulter?)

4. She uses her religious beliefs as a shield to cover her bigotry. I am a religious person, and her bigotry is not a "religious value" of any religion that I know or want to follow. Christianity always taught me to love and accept all people. She's abusing religion.

5. Getting the Donald to stand up for her and say that people only care about her opinion because she's such a hottie. Uhm, no, that's just why she got the microphone in the first place, remember?

And she also stole my name. Augh. Why is it that only bad people are named Carrie?

Goodness, I'm angry.

My morning starts with reading the on-line version of the paper De Volkskrant. On the front page was an article with the title "Pin-up van 35 duizend jaar oud". The important part being the word pin-up. It referred to this story.

I am very interested in the pre-christian culture of my continent. The info we have is patchy and sketchy. We need to interpret figurines without knowing the stories they figured in. We assume that they had a role to play in maintaining the fertility, the life of the community.

But since this is a naked woman, science editors (you know, the detached, scientific ones, the ones that describe the academic peer-reviewed truth) are terming this religious item a pin-up. A sex toy.

/sarcasm/ Because that's the only reason anyone would ever want to represent a female figure. So that heterosexual men can get off on it. /end sarcasm/

Of course, I e-mailed the editorial board.

I'm just sorry I forgot to mention that this kind of headlining doesn't inform us about 35 thousand years ago. It informs us about our current culture. The most important reason to depict a naked woman in our culture is to stimulate the sexual fantasy of a heterosexual male.

Credit where it's due: the content of the article wasn't all that bad. It's the headline that REALLY pissed me off.

Today I received an email from Slate magazine announcing the good news that Slate isn't just for men anymore. I totally didn't get that it was only for men before, hence my mistake in actually reading it occasionally. But I guess I should have known that, given that the default assumption in our culture is that anything that isn't specifically branded for women (i.e. dumbed down and pinkified) is for men. So now Slate is also for women, but only their Double X site, not the regular sections. Because their regular sections cover things like politics and the economy and new books and art and science. But women aren't interested in these things. No, women are obsessed with fashion and parenting and feminism-bashing, apparently. In fact, we need a flashier layout and more pictures than teh menz, based on the look of Double X.

So I foolishly clicked on the link in the email and proceeded to read a blog post entitled Whine, Womyn, and Thongs by Christina Rosen. According to Rosen, feminism has been an epic failure. This is because the goal of second-wave feminists was to bring about profound social change, but women today are shallow, unhappy, and obsessed with their piercings. In spite of the fact that they seem to have it all, they're discontented and whiny. Rosen attributes this to a major fact that feminists overlooked: choice is bad. Very bad:

In fact, for women today, the challenge is not a problem with no name that can be solved with a few simple changes in public policy. It is a paradox: the paradox of choice. The more options we have, the more anxiety we experience about the choices we eventually make, as economists who study choice theory have shown but as the feminist movement never acknowledged.

For one thing, this explains why all the men are so miserable. 'Cause choice itself is a terrible thing, and if second wave feminists had had more foresight, they would have realized this.

Second, the only thing that could possibly be causing the dicontent and frivolity of today's women must be the increased range of choices available to them. It couldn't be the fact that women's lives have in fact changed while societal views and expectations of them have lagged behind shamefully. It couldn't be because having a career and children generally results in double the stress and workload for women but not men. It couldn't be because they experience reciprocal pressure to both work outside the home and be a model parent, to be healthy and energetic while starving themselves to fit into the ridiculous beauty standard, to be wise and mature while looking like an 18 y/o. Could it perhaps have to do with the fact that, while many women desire to be taken seriously, our culture in general and media outlets like Slate continue to portray them as interested only in fashion, celebrity gossip, and parenting? Could it have anything to do with the disparate parenting burden and associated guilt and shame that's placed on women but not men, as evidenced by the fact that the default male version of Slate is uninterested in parenting articles?

The myopic view of feminism - both today and in the 60s - that Rosen takes is both puzzling and reveals that she is either out of touch or intellectually lazy. In any case, it seems clear that Rosen missed the part where feminism is not monolithic. It wasn't in the 60s and it certainly isn't now. Who are these Facebook feminists to whom she refers? I know a lot of women who identify as feminists on Facebook, and also organize, march, blog, aggitate, raise awareness, research, teach, write letters to Congressional representatives, and live feminist principles and values every day. We're not whining and we're not wearing thongs. At least I'm not, being opposed to torture in any form.

If Rosen had been interested in really analysing the situation of women today and how feminism has impacted their lives, she could have explored the fact that second wave thought pushed for a wider range of choices while overlooking the necessary changes in cultural attitudes that would need to accompany these choices. She could have looked at the underlying causes of the resentments that, according to her, women are always running around nurturing rather than shrugging it all off as a failure of feminism. But that would require a departure from intellectual laziness, which apparently is not required on a site like Double X. And that is profoundly depressing.

I tend not to put too much stock in the most emailed articles from most mainstream news sources; typically it's the fluff, the cute animals and oddities (not that there's anything inherently wrong with a little junk news). Case in point: the BBC's #1 most popular story of the moment: "60-foot penis painted on roof." Awesome.

The New York Times audience seems to tend toward sharing slightly more substantive articles, like the one written by an American expat loving life in the Dutch social welfare state , featuring in last week's Times Magazine (incidentally, worth checking out as feminist food for thought, if only to swoon at the provisions of the Dutch government's universal health care: ~$400 covers a family of 4, no copays, and dental included, day care is covered to the tune of $14,000/child annually, and legal barriers for midwives are lifted -- homebirth is a longstanding tradition).

But getting back to promoted articles: I looked at the most emailed articles on the NYT homepage this morning, hoping readers would be pointing to an equally engrossing read, and here's what I get:

Backlash: Women Bullying Women at Work

Hello my feminister sisters!

This is my thank you note to feministing and other feminist websites like it: Broadsheet, Jezebel, etc.

You know I don't always agree with everything that I read on this site and others like it. I disagree with some comments and some posts. Sometimes, I even feel frustrated. But lately my experiences with other websites have caused me to remind myself how wonderful--and truly significant--feministing.com and other feminist sites are.

I've been posting a lot lately (under a different user name) on the message board of a website that is not specifically feminist (or even liberal.) I won't give my other username or the name of this website. I will say however that the website is devoted to discussion of entertainment, and what I have been specifically posting on so much is the VH1 show "Tough Love."

Let me just say that my experiences with the other posters discussing this show have left me shocked, appalled, frustrated, and even furious at times. I am not kidding when I say that I often feel that I'm posting on a site from an alternate universe that has never heard of feminism or the women's movement. And because of the site's incredibly strict posting rules I often have to censor myself and can only critique their viewpoints in the most indirect way possible.

Hey :)

so I have been surfing around this sight for ages but this is my first post! and I'd like a little advice. There is a poster ad up around my school right now for a music concert titled "aural pleasure" and the picture was up red lipstick covered lips licking maraschino cherries (or lollypops?) that are actually speakers. And I thought it was a little sexist, but I'm pretty new at articulating this stuff and I can't put my finger exactly on why, but I wrote in to the people putting on the event and tried my best. I tried to point out how it was very clearly an image of a woman getting "oral pleasure" from the lollypop, but as an allusion to "oral pleasure" from giving head to a guy (think lil wayne lollypop song.) I think the problem with this image is that the pun only works one way. I don't think they'd make an ad that had clearly male lips licking cherries/lollypops, or an empty ice cream cone for that matter. Not that make men into sexual objects really makes it better, but it does at least allow them to defend the idea of using sex to sell, rather than just female sexuality...

 

So I guess, can I get a little advice on how to word why this is wrong? The guy who I am talking to is in my year, and we are friendly, but the email I first wrote was admittedly a little jumpy (as in, I started out by saying that I found the ad sexist and offensive, rather than saying it last or simply implying it...)

In the past week, I've been following the "Craigslist Killer" story with great interest. For those who may not have heard the story, 23-year-old medical student Philip Markoff is under arrest, charged with the murder of 26-year-old masseuse Julissa Brisman, whom he met via the Internet service. In addition, Markoff has also been charged with the robbery of another sex worker in Rhode Island.

Despite around-the-clock coverage of the story, it appears the military has once again gotten it all wrong. Not only are the articles written about this story - which should serve as a chance to have an open dialogue about violence against women - written with sexist slants, writers also fail to examine the story through feminist lens. Of course, I am not asking that every article be a feminist discourse, but now and then, it'd be nice to see stories written that will positively affect women's lives.

For starter - I am extremely offended that in this story, Brisman is described as a "Bronx-beauty." It seems, rather than focusing on the fact that a human being is dead as a result of, no doubt, violence against women, the media is focusing on Brisman's looks.

But it just isn't Brisman who is being viewed by the media based on looks. Markoff's fiance, Megan McAllister, too, is being described by reporters as a "love-struck bombshell," who "stands by her man," in supporting him through the ordeal. Again, what does McAllister's looks have to do with possible Stockholm Syndrome or that fact that millions of women are currently in relationships with violent men?

I caught this preview clip of the Oprah show that is set to air today, and was surprised to see that the word penis is bleeped out as though it is a swear word. Since when did names for our body parts become vulgar? It will be interesting to see if penis is bleeped out during the entirety of the show, and would certainly send the wrong message to young viewers in that it makes naming genitalia somehow shameful and dirty by the omission of the word.

Also, this is the only preview clip of the show that is up - notice that it is focused on the penis of Lorena's husband, and not the events that led up to what caused her to cut off his genitalia.

I'm a long time lurker and this advert disturbed me, so after not seeing it written about I decided to join up.

It's a UK ad, and there's so much wrong with it, from the stereotypical (pink) 'female' fishfinger to the shock the 'males' show when 'she' strips despite their initiating of the interaction- double standards anyone?

Besides these fact, they're creating gendered fish fingers. The only thing I can say in its favour is maybe it's satire and I didn't pick up on it.

While riding the bus in London, I couldn’t help but notice the large furry porn billboard seductively staring me in the face. Apparently Cadbury’s bunny “still has it.”

Beats me why any business would spend loads of dough to  sexualize their mascot. This bunny rabbit really makes me scratch my head. Cadbury assures us that Little Miss Carmel is “back with more curves and makeup.” Because that’s what we want from a caramel chocolate bar?

Using female image and sexuality to sell a product has  been used as a marketing strategy for a long time. But turning cartoons into seductresses? Does this bridge sexism or bestiality and who is the intended audience?

I think that this season of South Park has been the best yet; they have taken on a lot of really important political issues and made it hilarious and entertaining.

This episode, from two weeks ago, was really great.

Excellent and spot-on commentary about our cultural discomfort with women's body parts, functions, telling jokes, and especially telling jokes about body functions.

An excellent scene includes the mother telling them a joke about a baby boy farting in his mother's belly--they laugh until she adds the part about the fart coming out of her vagina.

South Park can be very crude and immature, but also very intelligent.

We've been talking a lot about the huge fallout of consent/rape issues in the new Seth Rogan movie 'Observe and Report' here on Feministing and elsewhere.

The issue with that scene is consent, and whether it ever occurred. I'm not going to rehash the clip, but I would like to bring up a similar instance of 'questionable' consent.

I was watching Sex and The City on tv last night while cooking and it was the episode where Miranda meets the handsome cop after Carrie gets mugged. She is nervous on her date with him and proceeds to get very very smashed on probably more than 4 double vodka martinis. After their date, they head to her place. She's slurring her speech and they're making out. She tells him "You're probably the most beautiful man I've ever slept with". He says, "You're not so bad yourself. You're a little drunk." (Something along those lines)

Miranda then rips off his tie and yells, "I'm no Mena Suvari but I'm great in bed!" and drags him into the bedroom.

What would be the consent situation here? She wasn't puking or passed out, but she did take the initiative. Could it be argued that the alcohol lowered her inhibitions and she wasn't making the best decision with a clear mind? It's such a gray area with that and the stupid Seth Rogan movie it's left me thinking about it ever since I saw the clip.....

Apparently the only women's rights dilema we have in the U.S is the disproportionate amount of time women have to wait for the loo compared to mens turbo restroom queues. At least this is what Amy Davidson would lead us to believe in the recent notes on the day from the New Yorker.   Seriously? So the whole patriarchy thing is just one huge farce?

The article highlights women's rights violations around the world. Zooming in on infanticide in China, the legalization of marital rape in Afghanistan and condoned forced marriage in Saudi Arabia. Davidson than goes to hint that in America

it is being accounted a triumph that the restrooms in New York's new baseball stadiums have better gender balance than the old ones

While I love that the New Yorker is confronting women's rights issues, I am confused as to why they felt the need to downplay women's rights in America. Yes marrital rape is illegal in The States, as is infanticide and forced marriage, but no, that does not mean that everything is just peachy here. We all know the statistics accompanying violence against women in America (1in 3 women experience) and don't forget the wage gap (75 cents for white women, 66 cents for WoC). So what is the point of this snide remark at the end of an informative article? I suppose Davidson wants us loud feminists to stop complaining about equality.

Check out Offensive Commercials: It's Showdown Time! via Bitch Magazine. You'll find gems like these and more!

The conclusion I've come to is that Orangina is made when a bear seduces a deer stripper, a panda has her top ripped off and an octopus uses her human breasts to squeeze oranges?

Then there's Schick. I might have considered buying this product were it not for this ad. The blatant racial stereotypes (the black girl with the giant fro and bush cutting with the hedge trimmer, the tiny asian girl with just scissors and a bonsai tree giving the girlish giggle etc) might even be worse than the lyrics, the pink lawnmowers, the hairless chiuaua... oh just watch it.

My favorite line is "Whenever I see a weed, I mow that rascal down, so all that's left for me to see are tulips on a mound."

Just. Oh. My. GAH

What comes to your mind when you think about pornography?

Part of me loves to villainize it - it is an evil, degrading concept oozing perversion and misogyny. I think of sticky pages in a men's magazine and middle-aged husbands with internet addictions. Porn is vile. It cuts us up into pieces and only displays those which men find most appealing. It misrepresents real women's bodies. Men want good girls, but they want them to be kinky too. What scares me the most is that porn gives the impression that women are oh-so-willing to do a plethora of things that I quite frankly am not willing to do because they do not feel good for me . And because I'm not a "slut" looking for my "first anal pain" and "facial abuse" (WTF??) , I'm a prude. There's still a million more reasons I could list off, but I'll save that for another day.

Don't get me wrong, I do watch porn occasionally and I'm still a feminist. That's why A Feminist Defense of Pornography (and more!) was such a great thing to stumble on - I highly recommend it for a bit of brain stimulation, especially if you're in the mood for contemplating. Thoughts, anyone?

There's no doubt that Michelle Obama is a pretty smart woman. However, did you know she's a smart dresser, too?

Of course you did. The media has turned her into a fashionista.

Nearly every article you read that mentions Michelle Obama includes some sort of description about her clothing.

In the article "Michelle Obama and the twists of first-ladyhood, by Meghan Dauwm of newsday.com, one of the first things mentioned is Michella Obama's "lava lamp" dress on election night and the "unfarmer-like outfit" she wore to plant a garden at the White House. First things first, I wasn't aware Michelle Obama had to wear bib overalls to plant a garden, and second, I think her status as the wife to the president and what causes, believes, and ideals she stands for is a little more important than where she shops.

The LA Times blog has an article specifically on Michelle Obama's fashion savvy skills that makes her out to be not only a fashionista, but an edgy one as well. The entry is really about the outfit -- it obviously doesn't matter if it was Michelle Obama who wore it or Kate Hudson.

Other articles continue the fashion trend. There's "...Michelle Obama Will Be the Next Jackie O" ("If anyone can predict whether Michelle Obama has the fashion chops to be the next Jackie I..."), "All Fashion Eyes at G20 on Michelle Obama" ("Fashionistas and photographers are following two first laides...").

One article emphasized her role as a mother and mentioned her Ivy League education, which almost brought me to tears of relief after all the fashion articles. The Calgary Herald actually said she has a "professional identity independent of her husband's." The article continues to quote others on whether or not anyone is concerned over Michelle Obama's choice to become a stay-at-home mom and how she's coping with the lost of her successful, high-profile, independent identify, and whether or not the first-lady giving up her identity to be an extension of her husband as a good symbol for American women to have.

One article mentions her intelligence level. A handful of articles mention her fashion intelligence level. What does this say about America? Oh, and I forgot the other article that only mentioned her because she made it trendy to plant a garden. Part of me thought that the obsession with what Michelle Obama was wearing would cool down as the months passed since election. Obviously I was a little too optimistic.

Now I'm a big fan of pop music along with other genres such as rock, hip-hop, R&B, etc. And I like a good deal of the today's pop singers but I don't like the feminist ignorance our pop singers of today seem to have and even wish that they knew how big of an impact they can truly have.

Let's take Lady GaGa for instance. She's became one of my new favorite pop singers by winning me over with songs like "Poker Face" and "Just Dance." I also in a way admired how she made a sexuality that was all her own. But now I don't know how to view her after making this comment about feminism:

''I think it's great to be a sexy, beautiful woman who can f--- her man after she makes him dinner,'' she says. ''There's a stigma around feminism that's a little bit man-hating. And I don't promote hatred, ever. That's not to say that I don't appreciate women who feel that way. I've got a lot of gay women friends that are like, 'Put your clothes on.' People just have different views about it. I'm not wrong. I'm free. And if it's wrong to be free, then I don't want to be right. Things are changing. We've got a black president, people.''

First off saying that there's a bit of man-hatred around feminism is contributing to the stereotype that feminists are ugly man-hating women that only are feminists because they can't get a man or whatever. And the whole sentence about her having gay friend who feel this way is also contributing to the feminists are just lesbian stereotype. Anything else after that sentence really makes no sense and I find it wierd how she throws in that we have a black president.

Behold, the cover for the March - April 2009 Psychology Today.

Sorry, I thought this was "Psychology Today," not "Toilet Cleaning Sex Kittens of Suburbia."

I realize that sexy images increase sales.  However, reducing the woman to a pair of spread legs in a short skirt and stillettos (and toilet brush! because nothing makes me feel sexy like cleaning the toilet dressed as a sexed-up June Cleaver) seems excessive. Way to be classy, Psychology Today. 

If you get a chance, contact the magazine and let them know they crossed a line with this cover.

Via BBC:

'Pregnancy advisory services - including abortion information - could be advertised on TV and radio under proposals due to be released.

Restrictions on condom adverts could also be relaxed, as part of plans aimed at reducing high UK rates of teenage pregnancy and sexual infections. '

Fantastic! Let's hope this doesn't get too much backlash from ignorant people moaning about the decline of Britain's moral standard. Already Conservative party members are bewailing how this represents just that. I found two articles on the same subject before the BBC one, and the BBC frames it in the most liberal light. Both Yahoo news and Sky news contain a quote from Conservative party anti-choice wingnut Nadine Dorres who is convinced the ads will show women happily skipping to abortion clinics instead of simply telling young women they have a choice.

About the condom ads, I'm not sure if they mean adverts for a particular brand, or more of the 'cautionary tales' campaign ads they show to convince young people to use protection. Either way, more of them can only be a good thing.

Should be interesting to see how these ads turn out.

P.S. Out of interest, as I mentioned, here in the UK there are cautionary ads on contraception, depicting young people having sex without a condom and getting infections or getting pregnant, with a tagline like 'always use a condom'. Do these sorts of ads air in the US?

Cause I'm wondering, after reading this article about a man who tragically raped a 12 year-old boy. At the end of the article it states:

'The 45 year-old, who is in a civil partnership...'

In the UK, it could not say 'married', since, even though most people have no trouble calling them marriages, they're officially civil unions. But is this just slipped in there to highlight the fact that the rapist was gay, and perpetuate the myth that most pedophiles are gay men? I'm hoping if he were married to a woman it would say 'the 45 year-old, who is married', but I don't know if it would.

Does anyone know if it is commonplace to state things like this in articles of this sort?

This is not a post specifically about Marilyn Monroe - more accurately, it is about what she represents. How society views her and many other actresses like her.

Let me begin by saying that for many years as a young woman, I loved her. I still admire her beauty and courage.
And this post came about because I watched an old film of hers recently.

While the film made me feel wistful for the innocence of my younger eyes - it also made my older, wiser self criticize it in a way that I criticize most things now.

So what is it we love about Marilyn?

I'm a journalism student, so I critique the news media more than I'd like to admit. Sometimes, it's nit-picky, nerdy-journalist things, and sometimes it's just atrocious.

CNN had a story online last night about three families killed in a plane crash on their way to vacation . The story is devasting — all three families had young children and two of the three women killed were sisters.

Now, CNN.com isn't exactly a bastion of good journalism, but I was shocked when I was this:

A dental practice in Valley Springs, California, said dentist Michael Pullen and his wife, Vanessa, were on the plane with their 9-year-old daughter, Sydney, and 7-year-old son, Christopher. The family is from Galt, California.

Dr. James DuHamel of DuHamel & Pullen Family Dental said the two families were related. Vanessa Pullen, a physician in Elk Grove, was the sister of Amy Jacobson, he said.

First reference of the Pullen family lists Michael Pullen as a dentists and Vanessa Pullen as "his wife." At first I read this to mean she didn't work. Then the next paragaph identifies her as a physician. According to CNN, Vanessa's marriage to Michael Pullen takes precedence over that fact that she was a doctor.

Now, to be fair, it's hard to ID so many people in one sentence. But from a purely journalistic standpoint here, Vanessa Pullen is more important, not her husband. She, her children, her sister and her children all died. The way this story was written makes it about the me. All three women are refered to as "his wife," not as their own person.

I'm not sure I'm explaining my feelings well here...but does this make sense?

One of the most surreptitiously anti-feminist strains of thought propagated by pop culture and other mainstream influences is the idea that not only are women supposed to be in competition with other women (for male attention, I guess?), but that other women rarely make very good friends -- they're bitchy, they're sneaky, they're catty, they're petty, they think they're too good and they talk shit behind your back...

Basically, they're not as cool as your guy friends.  Now they know how to chill out and just have a good time.  None of the drama that comes with stupid bitches, nahmean?

Well, Cheetos certainly seems to catch my drift.  In fact, they've made bitch-on-bitch hate the foundation of their latest TV ad campaign, as most of you have probably already seen.

Links: Soccer Moms video    Pigeons Attack video

While these mindless commercials are what got me thinking I should post, really they just stirred up a lot of other thougths floating around my head about the ways in which girls (and women) are expected (or seemingly feel compelled) to belittle their bonds with other girls or throw girls under the bus, in terms of their inability to be good friends.

I remember being a middle and high schooler, when it was a cool thing to identify as one of those girls who was "only friends with guys."  Because acknowledging that all other girls are catty little bitches that will stab you in the back by nature signified that you were chill/down/low-maintenance/just one of the guys yourself.

And recently, I read a post by Melissa over at Shakesville , in which she thanked the women of Golden Girls for showing her how beautiful and awesome female friendships could be.  It was only once I read those words that I realized it was something that so painfully needed to be said.  And it struck me as sad that such would be the case.  That even though all of us would call other women some of our closest friends, we operate under a myth that women and girls, by their nature, tend to be a high-maintenance, less cool, drama-prone type of friend.

And all this from a Cheetos commercial!  Talk about a humorless feminist..

More on the McCain-Ingraham dustup.  Dahlia Lithwick's article at Slate was so fascinating, I didn't want it to get lost in "Comment Land."

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. This is the female version of the Rush Limbaugh-Michael Steele -David Frum smackdown for the soul of the GOP? One skinny blonde attacking another skinny blonde who is angrily defended by a third skinny blonde, after which everyone retires in a huff to their favorite health blogs to angrily discuss the importance of a positive body image and the need to support a healthy body mass index?

Ever wonder why some men think women are less than serious political thinkers? It certainly helps explain why so many men continue to believe that when it comes to "political discourse," women are all long, sprawling legs and silky blond hair in a tangle on the dessert cart. It's one thing to air your dirty laundry. But are we really stupid enough to be having a front-page battle over a plus-size thong?

As much as I appreciated Meghan McCain's direct response, I think Lithwick has a point. What could have been an enlightening, and much needed, discussion about Republican policies devolved into a "women's" discussion about body image. Ingraham was totally out of line in her response, but I wish McCain had refused the bait.  Give one good size-related response (I think "kiss my fat ass" worked) and then get back on target with your original message. What say you, feminists?

A quick hit for the british readers:

BBC (radio) is currently runing a seris on the history of feminism:

Historian Bettany Hughes presents the first in a series of three discussions tracing the development of feminist ideas from the 1960s onwards.

A panel of guests explore the issues which motivated women to join together under the banner of feminism. While activists pursued campaigns involving street protests and fighting through the courts, other women were alienated by their arguments. Both feminists and non-feminists join Bettany to recall key events.

If you're a stranger to this ancient form of communication (radio) you can also catch this on BBC I-player (only availiable in the UK I'm told) - here.

I'm listening to it as I type - perhaps as it progresses it will inspire future posts... bra burning... interesting...

I've noticed a disturbing trend in the media's obsession with First Lady Michelle Obama's wardrobe lately, and apparently I'm not alone.  Last night, Jon Stewart and Kristen Schaal discussed it on The Daily Show and even offered some politically-motivated outfits for her.

I love that they contrasted the role of today's First Lady (which is a flawed and loaded title to begin with--but that's an entirely different post) with those of the 1960's.  It makes you appreciate how far we've come, while still loathing how far we have to go.  *Sigh.*

I thought this was interesting. It shows up at about 1:50

There's been a lot of talk here about the sexism, classism etc. inherent in some of the responses to Nadya Suleman's reproductive choices. This is probably the first time I've seen anyone in the mainstream media address the issue, however:

Octomom Hypocrisy

I was pretty impressed, since the MSM usually does everything it can to pander and cater to people's baser instincts, including their hypocrisy. I'm unsurprised that the article was written by a woman, although some of the most vicious commentary I've seen on Ms. Suleman's situation was also written by women. But then, women are society's go-to people for all kinds of dirty work, especially enforcing social norms that keep other women in line, so I guess I'm not surprised.

Incidentally, this is my first post here, so I hope I haven't messed it up somehow.

Watching last night's Keith Olbermann, I discovered that Rush Limbaugh was baffled by his "low" approval rating with women. Funny, I think 37% i's alarmingly high.

Apparently, Rush wants to find a way to make himself more attractive to women. Well, for starters, perhaps he could describe women in words other than, as Olbermann puts it, "feminazis, castraters, babes, the hot, and the unattractive."

So Keith had Jeanine Garafalo on the show last night to discuss this matter. She was hilarious, per usual, and went on a rant about Rush and Conservatives in general. I was particularly amused by her observation that, "any female or person of color in the Republican party are suffering from Stockholme Syndrome."

The whole thing just gave me a good laugh, I thought I'd share.

 

This commercial for 6-Hour Energy Shot was just disgusting and offensive beyond words. I'm surprised it was even allowed on television.

Apparently, Rush Limbaugh is in the mood for some lovin'. It must be because of our recent Valentine's Day, right?

Via Think Progress :

Women don’t really like Rush Limbaugh. On Feb. 23, Public Policy Polling released findings showing that only 37 percent of women hold a favorable opinion of the hate radio host, compared to 56 percent of men.

As Jill Zimon notes , Limbaugh brought up this poll yesterday on his radio show, noting that it was one of the largest gender gaps Public Policy Polling has seen on any issue it has polled in the past year. His solution? To convene a summit of women to find out why they dislike him...

So Rush wants to hold my hand, or something like that. So I thought I would leave this up to you, Feministingers. What can Rush do to earn greater favorability in your heart? You know, that cold little corner reserved for fear-mongering, disrespectful, misogynistic, right-wingers with hearts like ice and wallets squeezed shut tighter than their... well, you get the idea.

Today I bought a copy of the March 2009 issue of Vogue. Normally I don't buy this magazine because a) it's too expensive and b) other than looking at all the pretty pictures, I don't follow fashion enough to want to read any of the articles.

But I bought the March issue because Michelle Obama was on the cover!

I love Michelle. I think she's intelligent, an excellent role model, and fierce as hell. If I ever had the chance to meet her, I'd be the happiest person alive.

The first thing I looked at when I found the article was the photographs. Thank goodness, they don't have Michelle dressed in anything exotic or tribal - no animal prints, no safari getups. Instead she sports professional outfits reflecting her own taste and enhancing the nature of the piece: that's she's independent; a leader.

The title of the article is Leading Lady written by André Leon Talley. Again, it seems promising.

But as I read the article, as well as the captions of the photographs, a repetitive name catches my eye:

"Mrs. Obama has a hug - a sincere and friendly embrace..."

"Mrs. Obama anticipates traveling with her own daughters..."

"Mrs. Obama wears Narisco Rodriguez..."

"Mrs. Obama's lithe frame..."

"Mrs. Obama..."

"Mrs. Obama..."

"Mrs. Obama..."

I counted a total of 21 times that Michelle Obama was addressed as "Mrs. Obama" in the article. Her name was used only a total of 12 times, mostly in quotes from associates and friends who were interviewed.

Perhaps it's just me, but in an article about a woman of strength, intelligence, and leadership, why on Earth would you constantly refer to her as "Mrs." instead of her name? To me, it seems as if the writer is saying that the only way Michelle Obama is a "leading lady" is because of her marriage to our now President, Barack Obama. Michelle is a leader in her OWN right, and I believe she should be acknowledged as such.

Or perhaps I am reading too much into things.

A note: the article itself was very good and charming. Occasionally slipping into fashion talk, but since it's a fashion magazine I expect it. Just that name...

Here's a link to the article online: Leading Lady by André Leon Talley.

What do you think? Sexist connotation? Or just a simple "formality"?

I'm sure quite a few people have seen this commercial, but I wanted to talk about it regardless:

This ad bugs me for a couple reasons.

1. Men's armpit hair does not grow that long, why would a woman's? It kind of reminds me of the movie Without a Paddle (specifically @ 1:20) and how women's body hair, when we allow ourselves to have it, is greatly exaggerated in the media. Because we're supposed to be hair free, otherwise we're masculine. *rolls eyes*

2. According to Boost mobile, women having arm pit hair is unnatural. Um, what? Actually, altering your body from it's natural state makes it unnatural, so technically, when women shave off body hair, THAT is unnatural. Not that that's bad, I shave body hair off myself, because I prefer certain parts of my body to be hairless. But technically speaking, shaving is "unnatural."

3. Also, according to Boost mobile, women having arm pit hair is "wrong" judging from the last few seconds when they plug their ad and claim that it is "un'wronged."

Screw you Boost Mobile. Women having arm pit hair, or body hair in general is not unnatural or wrong. It's no different from men having body hair. Screw you for enforcing gender stereotypes and body issues.

Last night I happened to catch a few minutes of Ann Curry's NBC interview with Nadya Suleman, the woman who recently gave birth to octuplets. Did anybody else feel bothered by the way that Curry kept trying to SHAME Nadya Suleman for having babies without a man in her life, SHAME her for being unemployed, SHAME her for seeking government assistance? Curry even went so far as to equate student loans with welfare, and she kept saying "Aren't you selfish? Aren't you selfish?" Regardless of what you might think of the social/economic implications of Suleman's decision or her ability to provide for her fourteen children, the treatment of this woman just smacks of misogyny. She seems happy with her choice, repeatedly referring to her eight healthy newborns as a gift, while the media has merely deemed her story "sad and disturbing."

Your thoughts?

Today I read two pieces that addressed aging women. The first was an interview wherein Michelle Pfeiffer's describes turning 50 as very "liberating." She talks about the great film roles she feels she has available to her, and the fact that her leading men keep getting younger - something she doesn't mind at all (nevermind that this contradicts most testimonies from 'aging' women actors who face dwindling career opportunites as they exit their 30s and 40s).

I've stumbled across similar stories celebrating older women - like Dame Judy Dench, Helen Mirren, Diane Keaton, even Goldie Hawn and Demi Moore. They are lightly praised for their continuing relevance in their professions, sure, but moreso, for their 'well-preserved' faces and bodies. This isn't new. To be celebrated as an older woman, these reports indicate, you must be age-defying in terms of your looks. The article on Pfeiffer was nice in that it re-orients age more positively, that is, in terms that remind us that, for women, age has been used as a tool of oppression, marking us as irrelevant by a given point in time. And perhaps it doesn't have to be.

I was surprised that no one has wrote about this yet. When I heard that this happened, I felt so upset. Upset that it was being glorified. Upset that everyone was looking at Rhianna as a product, not as a woman, as a HUMAN, with emotions. Upset that Chris Brown got off on $50,000 bail - which, let's be real here, is pocket change to him. I am upset that people are defending him and saying, "She must have done something to deserve it." I am upset that WOMEN are defending him. I am upset that even my OWN MOTHER said, "Well now they think he was in the car with another girl and her bruises might have been from a jealous cat fight." I am upset that this gets publicity because it is about Chris Brown and Rhianna, meanwhile while this was happening hundreds, if not thousands, of women and girls were beaten, raped, and killed yet none of that makes news. I am upset that, most likely, the media will "settle" the situation and just "make it go away." Upset that thousands of young men and women look up to Chris Brown and probably still will. I am upset that the media won't use this as an opportunity to raise awareness about domestic violence with some real statistics and facts. I am upset that it will continue to be normalized and ignored. I'm not asking to turn this into a PSA or something, and maybe it's too much too soon, but the powerful media bodies need to use their voices because this is a REAL issue. I don't care who raises (truthful) awareness about the domestic violence issue, but you would THINK it's about time. And it's sad because that probably won't happen. We live in this hyperreality in America... people think they "know" Chris Brown, saying "he's so sweet, and such a good guy" that "he'd never do that." Stop it! We do not know him, his past experiences, his temper, his personality, or anything other than the fact that he can sing and dance (and that is still a subjective statement). I think it is horrific how this is being glorified and completely overlooks the thousands of families in America who suffer from domestic violence. I feel powerless because I can't change the media, nor can I change the minds of everyone in America. And even as a women who has not been a victim of violence, I feel oppressed by this situation. I just cannot believe how this situation, which is very real for too many families, is being glamorized.

I am a student leader on campus, so I was thinking about this: At one of the meetings for my organization, rather than doing the usual agenda, use it as a forum to talk about domestic violence and show people some real statistics (of course with legitimate sources) or something like that. I feel that as one person, that is all I can do. Even if I influence just ONE person to think differently about domestic and sexual violence, I'd feel I'd made a difference.

I just really need to rant about that. I'd like to get other people's thoughts as well on the situation or if you have a good idea about raising awareness on a college campus (side note- my school is currently in the process of creating a sexual harassment policy. It's 2009. Why hasn't this shit been done already? Fucked up, right?)

I've been a self-identified Feminist for pretty much my whole life. However, I didn't get really vocal about it until I was in my mid-20s and feeling more secure in my abilities to defend myself verbally and physically.

When I started becoming "louder" in pointing out sexist bullshit, at first my husband would roll his eyes or tell me to simmer down. When I pointed out sexist bullshit in comics, he'd tell me to quit fussing over trivial bullshit.

But I kept doing it, kept pointing things out, kept being vocal.

So, the other night we're watching TV and I wasn't really paying attenion, I think I was looking for a rough draft of a story I wanted to work on. From the other end of the couch I hear, "Oh my GOD! Could that be any more sexist?" I look over, and my husband has a look of just utter disgust on his face. I don't remember what the commercial was, but he looks over at me and says, "What the hell do half naked chicks have to do with X? That's bullshit, fuck those guys. We're never buying their crap."

I'm so proud.

Oh, Chick Flicks.

Before I start here, I feel it's necessary to preface with this: I do love a good "chick flick". Love Actually may even be one of my favorite movies. Couple this with Pride and Prejudice, the Princess Bride, and Mansfield Park (with such great lines as "I often think it odd that history should be so dull. The men all good for nothing, and hardly any women at all. I think a great deal of it must be invention," as taken directly from Austen herself) and I'll be satisfied for a rainy day or two (throw in Braveheart, too, and even better). 

But when a friend called me up lately and asked if I wanted to go see "He's Just Not That Into You," I found that I really didn't want to-- but I had a hard time explaining why not. 

It stereotypes women, I said. It seems to be (I don't want to say "is" as I haven't actually seen it) sexist and project dating standards that are exclusive to the white middle class. In fact, having just written that sentence, I went and looked at the poster for the movie and sure enough, all white, all middle class, all between the ages of 20-40. You know, the FUN time in your life. But when I expressed that to my friend, she responded with "Isn't that what comedy is? An exaggeration?" And I told her maybe, but it depends on what you sacrifice along the way.

Which is why I was so glad to stumble upon this article: It's Time To Kill the Chick Flick in the UK Times Online. This isn't a news source that I read very often, and so I may be totally off in commending them for their article. But I am so glad I found this, as it really highlights so many of the things that have made me want to run towards the silver screen with a big pair of silver shears. 

I thought this part was particularly illuminative: 

The reason for all this sinister discord is ultimately, of course, men. “Fewer than 10 per cent of Hollywood films are written by women, and fewer than 6 per cent directed by women,” explains Melissa Silverstein, a movie marketing consultant and founder of the company Women & Hollywood. “So really what you are seeing is a white male version of women. And that is just unacceptable.”

I may go to see the film just to spend time with a friend whom I haven't see in a while. But I so hope that Hollywood stops feeding us with this patronizing, one-sided, stereotyped version of "what women want" (which I fell asleep during, actually). 

I wrote my senior thesis on female characters in children's fantasy literature. How they were growing, how they had begun to come out into their own-- they were no longer being forced to be solely damsels or witches, no longer just the healers and the sisters or the lovers. There was a steady growth in agency from the essential but passive girls of Narnia to the integral women of Harry Potter. But it seems like the film industry is doing just the opposite. We started out well, with Bridget Jones, who, as painful as it is to watch her fumble about sometimes, is decent and intelligent and knows what she wants and isn't afraid of making mistakes. And now we have... Bride Wars? The heartwarming story of two women willing to give up a lifetime's friendship for one stupid party? 

Come on, Hollywood. I'm smarter than that. I have feelings, too, Hollywood. Stop hurting them. Or else you are going to be down, down, down in half of your audience. We'll find other things to do. Like write a screenplay of our own. 

I don't know if people have seen this commercial before (it's a bit old), but I thought it worth posting. It is a take off on the Mac versus PC commercials. This commercial is Wii versus Playstation 3 with each product represented by a woman. It reinforces the "smart but plain, angry, and humorless" and "dumb but hot and fun" stereotypes as though a woman cannot be both smart and beautiful. And of course it panders to the patriarchal view of a "fun" woman who is sexually available without any of that annoying thinking involved. Whatever the pros and cons of the actual products themselves, the commercial is a bust.

Highlights of the commercial: bodyshots of Wii running her hands over herself; Wii saying, "I'm cheap...*and* fun"; and Wii slapping her own ass *twice*.

USA Network gets major points for their new ad campaign:

The cynical part of me says the network just wants attention, but there is definitely a part of me that does a happy dance when they mention racism and sexism and also show a gay couple.

If you want more info on the pledge, here's the link.

And, just for the fun of it, here are some of the responses that have been posted on the USA Network website.

(I never will understand the "I'm all for anti-discrimination, but..." comments.)

So I was reading the Yahoo!news earlier tonight when I came across this article featuring a woman who had just had a set of octuplets and already has six other children.  The mother's mother is, of course, concerned that her daughter is "obsessed with having children" and has been since she was a teenager.  The mother also says that

"It can't go on any longer . . . [s]he' got six children and no husband.  I was brought up in the traditional way.  I firmly believe in marriage.  But she just didn't want to get married."

The article also includes some dubious psychiatric advice from doctors who have never met either the woman having the children or her mother.  The article further divulges the father's name of some of the older children which the author of the article aquired through the Associated Press who reviewed those children's birth certificates.

Apparently, this woman's pregnancies have "sparked an ethical debate" about whether or not this woman should have been allowed/encouraged to continue having in vitro fertilization after she already had 6 children.  However, I think the more clear ethical issues in this case surround the behavior of the grandmother and of the press.

With regard to the grandmother's comment, would her daughter's situation really be that much better if she were married?  If she had a husband, would it all of sudden be a piece of cake to raise 14 children including one set of octuplets?  It seems that the reason this woman has caused such a stir is not because she has 14 children but because of the way in which she had them.  She's not married and she chose to have a family the way that she wanted to have a family.  Isn't that her right as a citizen and as a woman?  Regardless of whether her decision was the best thing for her or for her children, it was still her decision to make and not anyone else's. 

It's also a little wierd, I think, that the media has taken such an interest in this story.  So what if she had a set of octuplets?  Yeah, it's a lot of babies, but why is it so terrible that she keeps having babies and she's a potential burden on the state but not the Duggars or the Goesslins or any other family with large numbers of children (espeicially multiples)?  The whole tone of the article seemed like it was trying to restrict this woman's choice about the size of her family, but I always thought that the ability to choose to limit the number of children a woman had also meant her ability to choose not to limit that number.  Thoughts?

I am so sick of the media making hype over celebrities gainging weight. Jessica Simpson's "weight gain" is everywhere (check out Yahoo!'s "OMG" section ). Leave her alone! It pisses me off so much because being a young women, I understand the immense pressures that are thrown at us to be thin (granted one could argue that Jessica Simpson fits the "ideal" beauty standards, but not the point right now)- I can't imagine those pressures when you are constantly under examination.

In this article , Kim Kardashian sticks up for Jessica. Regardless of whether or not you think these women are good role models or feminist icons (indeed they have both done things that can be considered unfeminst-like), I like the fact that Kim spoke up about this. Also, I think they are both very beautiful women regardless of their weight, size of their ass, what pants they wear, or whatever.

Other celebrities spoke out as well here , and maybe some of them are being hypocrites, but at least it's being acknowledged how absurd this is. (Rose McGown comments that it's "heartbreaking" that this still happens in "the age where Hilary Clinton is now Secretary of State"; however, I don't think people realize that just because we have a few strong political women, sexism doesn't just go away.)

The media needs to back off (it's sad that they probably never will) and stop trying to tear down these women. The media is not only making it harder on these women, but sending out the repulsive message to young girls that if you're not skinny you suck. One article tried to blame Jessica's "struggling career" on her "weight gain". I think she should embrace her curves and her womanly body and tell everyone to shove it.

So what, she's not "perfect". But who the fuck is?

This is a random rant I posted on my blog the other day:

I know this song is kinda old now, but I still wanna speak on it. I'm not a fan of Jazmine Sullivan's in the first place. Her voice gets on my last nerve. It always sounds like she's in pain. Anywho, that's neither here nor there. As much as I hate to listen to her, I decided to sit down one day and listen to the song in its entirety. That was stupid. The whole song is the embodiment of the "angry black woman" stereotype. She catches her man cheating and decides to hurt him back by busting his car windows. Wow. That's mature.

This in from Yahoo "Movie News and Gossip" (it's my parents' computer's homepage...?):

Ashlee Simpson-Wentz has a bone to pick with those who say her sister is looking a bit meatier than usual.

"I am completely disgusted by the headlines concerning my sister's weight," Simpson wrote Tuesday on her website. "A week after the inauguration and with such a feeling of hope in the air for our country, I find it completely embarrassing and belittling to all women to read about a woman's weight or figure as a headline on Fox News."

PETA was denied air time for their proposed Super Bowl commercial that once again objectifies women in the pursuit of stopping meat consumption.

'Veggie Love': PETA's Banned Super Bowl Ad

The New York Post reported this today, while PETA's site gives a great description of the commerical: "PETA's ad—which features a bevy of beauties who are powerless to resist the temptation of veggie love—was deemed too hot for the Super Bowl."

Exploiting one group (women) to stop exploitation of another (animals) is something I have never understood. This isn't the first time PETA has been highlighted on Feministing for their impeccable taste and class.

I want to tell this little story about my own beginnings because it's very interrelated to happiness and Agnes.  When I was a little girl and I grew up ... my life was hell.  I lived with an alcoholic father who beat me and molested me and it was all inside that.  And always as a child, I had this fantasy that somebody would come and rescue me.  And I actually made up a little character whose name was Mr. Alligator.  And I would call him up when things got really bad and would say it was time to come and pick me up.  And I would pack a little bag and wait for Mr. Alligator to come.

The above quote is from Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues, speaking at TED (available online).  The woman she mentioned, Agnes, was a Masai woman who was fighting female genital mutilation.  Ensler continued, telling Agnes' story, and finally concluded with:

... and, there was this house.  And it said "V-Day Safehouse for the Girls."  And it hit me, in that moment, that it had taken 47 years, but that Mr. Alligator had finally shown up.  And he'd shown up, obviously, in the form, it took me a long time to understand, which is that when we give, in the world, what we want the most, we heal the broken part inside each of us.

Ensler is, for those who aren't familiar with the term, an ACOA or adult child of an alcoholic.  That means what it sounds like, she's an adult who was the child of an alcoholic.  Numerous studies have shown the profound and distinct impact a parent's alcoholism has on the course of a child's life.  ACOAs tend to have common traits and deal with similar issues throughout lives, a fact recognized by both the treatment and scientific communities.

At TED, a very public forum, Ensler chose to share this deeply personal fact about herself.  To me, this sends a powerful message.  It says "I'm ok with who I am, and you can be too, even if your father was an alcoholic."  I applaud her, and the many other ACOAs who have shared their stories, and chipped away at the huge stigma that still exists.  Since they have chosen to put their stories out there, I think they would want as many ACOAs to have access to them as possible.  But not everyone thinks so.

Bernard Dewulf, a Belgian (Flemish) writer, columnist and professional nostalgic has pissed me off with his romanticized conservatism on many occasions, but this time he really pushes it. In the Friday 16/01 newspaper (I'm a bit late with my irritation, I know), he writes a column about housewives. It is a pseudo-literary, sweet-voiced ode to an eroticized image he cultivates about housewives. It's disturbing on so many levels I don't quite know where to start. First: nostalgia is a dangerous sentiment. I understand the literary value of this specific kind of Weltschmerz. Revelling in all kinds of Schmerzes might be the second most profitable Writer's Goldmine. But rosy depictions of a long-gone past (or often just gone) are especially dangerous for what they omit: more poverty, more inequality (a topic that is debatable, but in Western societies in any case the median income (not the mean) has risen substantially. At the same time, the price of many commodities has dropped, so that our living standard has increased by far more than the actual rise in pay) , more violence, more sickness and premature death. Especially the position of women has known a dramatic change over the last couple of generations. True, there might be a rise in the divorce rate, but where women used to be forced to stay in an abusive marriage because of financial or moral restrictions, women can now pack up and leave. It's true too that some women have to go and work out of economical necessity even when they'd rather be staying at home. But two generations ago, there were a lot of frustrated housewives, sitting at home, forced to take a position outside of where the action is. So I don't like nostalgia. Of course, it's about the smell of freshly ironed linen, and the taste of home-baked cookies. But beneath that surface, barely hidden, lies a political judgment about women and their place in society. And we all know what that place looks like in Nostalgia land: the home.

Second: the literary style puts up a protection against possible criticism. It's a column, written in the first person singular, but the style is distinct. So even if you would write an angry letter to the newspaper, the writer could safely hide behind his aura of literarity. It's a hideaway where reactionaries or people of doubtful ethics have always sought and found protection (Céline or Ezra Pound, to name just two). What makes me sad is that there is no discourse about racism or sexism in Belgium. So wouldn't it be better if I would write the newspaper, or the writer in question, instead of letting off steam on my blog? Maybe. But it's not easy when there is no discourse you can refer to. You have to explain everything from scratch. It's a very off-putting thought. And of course, I don't feel like getting a reply that 'I obviously don't know how to value literature', which is like saying you don't have a sense of humor when you don't think the joke was funny.

Third: the eroticization. That's possibly even a better hideaway then literature. Because it's personal what turns you on, isn't it? For some leather boots do the trick, some like a nurse costume, others are into R&B and whipped cream. And for some it's housewives. De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum. End of discussion.

Here is a translation (be prepared to be pissed):

Some of you may remember, when an economist from Freakonomics asked on his blog, "What Do Prostitutes and Rice Have in Common?"

Ann wrote about it here, and a community poster followed up here.

I personally felt that the original post was definitely in poor taste, though I didn't feel it was overly offensive. There is currently a new post up, "What Do Economists Have in Common With Garbage?"

After he poses the question, Steven Levitt adds this:

"I know it is a horrible, unforgivable thing to objectify any human being (even an economist) by comparing him or her to an inanimate object. And to compare economists to garbage, well that obviously means that I think all economists are garbage, including myself. I'm sure that tears will be in the eyes of all of my colleagues when they hear how I have demeaned them with this insensitive comparison."

I think this sarcasm, which is nothing but an attack on anyone who questioned the previous post, to be incredibly mean-spirited and much worse than the first post. Rather than engaging in the debate about how his words could have hurt or objectified women, he just brushes it all off with sarcasm. I don't think we should let him get away with it.

I work in media relations, and receive several general inquiries a day via a wire service. I just received this one from Parenting Magazine, titled "Moms of Kids Under 5 to Gather Kids' Quotes."

The full request reads: Do you have a child who's 5 or younger? Would you like to help a desperate Parenting magazine editor? I'm doing a quote roundup and would appreciate it if you would ask your child, "What's the last thing mommy did that made you angry?" and then get back to me with his or her reply. It would be terrific if you could do this ASAP, as I'm trying to finish the piece by the end of the day. Please respond with your name, your child's name and age, your hometown, and an e-mail and phone number where you can be reached. Contact: [redacted].

So many issues here. To start with, the magazine is called "Parenting", not "Mommying," so you'd think they might also be interested in the perspectives of fathers. Secondly, it assumes that Moms are more likely to be at home near their children and able to talk to them right this moment. Finally, it just completely leaves the kids' relationship with fathers out of the equation. They want to know what mommies do to make kids angry, not what parents do.

My boyfriend is a single dad with 50% custody of his young daughter, and he is constantly annoyed by the way the media ignores the existence of fathers (except to portray them as bumbling idiots). I'm horrified too. My own dad was a working professional but still made us breakfast and packed our lunches every day, and helped with our homework at night as much if not more than our mom did. Flip through any parenting magazine, and the ads and articles make it clear that dads are simply not part of the formula. (The slight exception is WonderTime magazine, which does occasionally include quotes from and pictures of dads).

Leaving fathers out of parenting only promotes the stereotype of the uninvolved dad. And that isn't good for men, women or children.

Excuse me, THIS is the latest Target Women. Now we get two in a row on Feministing!

I am not proud to admit this, but I have a copy of "The Rules ." It was given to me by my mother a few years ago as a gift before leaving for college (I must note that that she also gave me some other books, like the Maria Shriver books "And One More Thing Before You Go... " and "Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out into the Real World ," which were cute/nice - but I digress...). I was sort of really offended that she gave me "The Rules" because, quite frankly, I think it's silly to date with the sole purpose of finding a husband and playing coy little "feminine" games to find "Mr. Right" (not to mention the fact that it focuses on the stupid heteronormative dating standards). I never read the book, though I breezed through it with a look of "bleeech" on my face. 

I forgot about this book until recently because I read the book "He's Just Not That Into You: The No Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys " - I am still not sure how I feel about it, nor am I sure why I read it, curiosity on the topic of heteronormative dating "standards" and why they exist, perhaps (Side note: It is written by two writers from "Sex and the City," which irritates me because I feel the show has some false feminist icons, but that is just my opinion and not what I am discussiong now). I feel like this book is, in a way, a modified version of "The Rules" and I am not sure if it is truly applicable, perhaps because once again it applies to heteronormative dating standards. Throughout the book, the author keeps insisting that 90% of men apply to what he says... which I don't know if I believe. I feel that if you follow these standards or "The Rules" (or the modified version of it), you will end up dating a misogynist... just my opinion. (Although, one could argue that this book is about not putting up with the BS of dating, but I still feel it is all about appeasing the man - which is not cool/very sexist.... hence why I am not sure how I feel about this book. I guess overall it aggravates me.)

After reading "He's Just Not That Into You," I found out it was being made into a movie . Which is kind of annoying, because based on the trailers it seems like it is just depicting all these women as needy and desperate (but I suppose I will have to see the movie before making a sound judgment - based on the book, I think that is how it will be).

Facebook has been getting a lot of heat in the media recently about banning pictures of women breastfeeding because it is deemed "obscene" by the sites policies for posting images.

Blink.

Ok, all problems with social networking media aside, how is an intimate moment between a mother and her child, intended for the mom's list of friends and family, who she has presumably approved or been approved by, obscene? And why the HELL are people complaining about it? For example, the story connected to the video above is here .

Although some of the commenters are coming from an honest place, others are demonstrating their sheer disgust at a woman breastfeeding. It's really an eye opening series of comments.

But on to my point. Facebook doesn't say boo when a man posts a picture of himself coming out of a swimming pool shirtless. I see nipples, I see France, I see gender discrimination on Facebook.

The same people commenting about these breastfeeding moms being, and I shit you not, "attention whores", don't say a word about young, hot, drunk girls posting pictures of their weekend shenanigans. Why isn't that offensive, or attention seeking, hmmmmm? Could it be because nipples (and hot girls) are only there for your enjoyment, and god forbid we entertain the thought of their FUNCTION? Just a thought.

Now I am not saying that everyone should run out, make a nipple collage, and post it to Facebook. What I am saying is that if you want to censor nipples, you have to do it for men and women alike. Fine with me, as long as we play fair.

Oh wait, I forgot the classic argument. Men's nipples aren't sexy or erotic, they're normal, right? Says who? That only presumes that women are not sexually aroused by images of men. Ladies, thoughts?

It seems to me that we are backtracking a few decades here by even entertaining the debate that breastfeeding on Facebook is somehow obscene when we already allow women to do it in public. Here's a thought; don't look if you don't like it. It works for me and Fox News.

Whatever comes of this art project challenging Facebook, it goes without saying that Nipplegate ceases to go away...kind of like women, their babies, and their nipples.

Every time someone brings out a sexy ad with a half-naked model and starts complaining about objectification, I find that I have exactly two complaints.

Excessive airbrushing makes me angry. Fine, go ahead, tidy up the hair and get rid of acne. But it's completely unnecessary to photoshop a perfectly good body into a bobble-headed Barbie doll. American Apparel does very good business with a strict policy against photoshopping their ads. There's no reason any other company has to go overboard. But this is a topic for another day.

My other problem, and the one I'm going to discuss here, is that the half-naked person is almost always a woman.

I don't think that sexualization is demeaning or degrading. That belief is a very short step away from saying that sex is demeaning, which is bullshit. I do think that the objectification of women and women alone is responsible for a lot of problems.

I've heard some people say that equal objectification of men would just make the situation worse. Two wrongs don't make a right.

These people are wrong, and here's why.

From Jezebel:

France's Eram has launched a series of ads featuring ostriches and a naked guy with a tagline that translates to, "no women's bodies were exploited in this ad."

This comes from the actual posting at Feminist Law Professors titled "Mocking Sexism or Mocking Feminism?".

Check it out.

What do you guys think?

Over here at CNN.com, there's an article about why women shouldn't say 'I love you' first.

I was wondering what all you Feministing-ers thought. The whole bit about men processing their emotions more slowly than women seems like gender-stereotyped hogwash to me.

I also suppose the fellas don't feel so bad if a woman doesn't return the sentiment once they've said 'I love you' first, eh?

Sheesh.

Possible trigger warning?

I work in the library of an art museum, and as such, I am surrounded every day with a lot of images. Picasso, Van Gogh, Hopper, etc. In my current batch of books, the ones that will pass through my hands and then go upstairs to the shelves, there is a book of images by photographer Daido Moriyama. Known for his images depicting the "breakdown of traditional values in post-war Japan," his most famous image is that of a stray dog.

However, the book in my hand depicts something different: a woman, naked, curled on her side in a field with her feet bound and her hands bound behind her back. The interior of the book isn't much better, with women stripped down, many of them with their arms tied behind their backs and ropes crossing over and under their breasts. There are some lying in fields on their stomachs, tied up. One image of a nude woman laying face down in a pile of hay in a barn, her arms and legs splayed.

Now, not all of them are like this. Some of the shots are gorgeous images of nudes, others of landscapes.

I know there has been some discussion, here and elsewhere, concerning the America's Next Top Model "Dead" model photoshoot.

Now, I don't pretend to know art at all (children's and YA books are more my style), so I have to wonder:

What is the difference between these photographs and Tyra's? And why is it okay for this man to depict women who are bound and tossed out on the lawn? Is it okay, artistically speaking?

I am hardly saying that one needs to censor art to make it acceptable and palatable for everyone. That, after all, is hardly the purpose of art, be it visual, literary, music, etc.

Perhaps the difference lies in the intentions? Tyra tried to make violence beautiful and sexy. And maybe this guy is really trying to say something important with these pictures and I'm just not fluent enough in the language of visual media to be able to interpret. And yet still, some of the images are so tinged with an aura of violence, so positively uncomfortable and disturbing to look at. And not in a challenging way, but in a way that presses on my very humanity. It is not a picture that you do not want to look at and yet cannot look away. It is a picture that you do not want to look at and so you slam the book shut.

I don't know. Thoughts?

Thought you might be interested in this article which appeared in the UK's The Times today - 'The New Feminists.'

I was reading this article in the Toronto Star this morning called "In 2008, feminism is still an f-word" by Antonia Zerbisias.

And I was wondering as I read it...

(1) Why is feminism still an f-word? Why, if someone asks me if I'm a feminist, do I get awkward and try to avoid the question, giving some half-assed "Well, I agree with all the main points, but.." kind of answer?

(2) Will it ever not be an f-word?

(3) How can we make it not an f-word?

A few weeks ago, I posted an essay on the community forum about my displeasure with advertising's Madonna/whore representation of women ("Tide is In..."), and some comments after the piece argued that advertising simply reflect society as it is, that society has to change before advertising changes.

I think the discussion is an important one to have, which led me to later interview Jean Kilbourne and GenderAds.com founder Dr. Scott A Lukas, and others, for an article I wrote that explores what effect, if any, the media and advertising have on the way society views and treats women. What prompted the piece was an earlier article in the paper I worked for that referred to a slave owner as a "pimp."

(The article follows.)

Media and the sex slave industry

Federal prosecutors have said one-time East Hartford “pimp” Brian Forbes sold two young women to another “pimp” for a promised payment of more than $1,000 in late 2003.

The sale — for which Forbes never actually received payment, according to prosecutors — came after Forbes had already held the two women in an East Hartford apartment, raped them, and “shared them” sexually with friends, federal authorities charged.

Forbes denied the human-sale allegation, but pleaded guilty to a variety of sex-trafficking crimes, including the use of child prostitutes and threatening serious bodily harm to keep two 18-year-olds in his service after they started working for him voluntarily. He was sentenced this year to 13 years in prison.

“Pimp” is here marked by quotations because, technically, a pimp is a person who solicits clients for a prostitute, and in its most positive interpretation prostitution is a voluntary act entered into by individuals who choose to exchange their bodies for money.

Forbes, in this particular case, was not a pimp, but a slave owner.

The case in East Hartford is by no means unique. According to a 2004 report by John Miller, then director of the federal Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons in Washington, D.C., modern slavery plagues every country, including the United States.

Not an easy question to answer is why our country, considered by many to be a progressive nation at the forefront of securing individual human rights, is one of the principal destinations for 14,500 to 17,000 women and children trafficked annually for the purposes of slavery.

In a 2004 Trafficking in Persons Annual Report, Miller noted that information on slavery is inexact, “but we believe that the majority of slave victims, in the neighborhood of 80 percent, are of the female gender.” He added, “We believe the largest category of slavery is sex slavery.”

Ms. magazine reported in the summer of 2007 that sex trafficking is one of the most profitable crime industries in the world — second only to the drug trade — and that U.S. trafficking victims are most prevalent in New York, Texas, Florida, and California. The question now becomes, how is it females have come to be considered a viable, and apparently an even somewhat palatable, commodity, particularly in the United States?

While it’s not possible to blame the use of female slaves on any one factor, it’s difficult not to question the effect media and advertising could have on a society’s perception of women.

Mabelle M. Segrest, Fuller-Matthai professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and chairwoman of the Gender and Women’s Studies Department at Connecticut College , says that to be objectified is to be turned into an object, and to be commodified is to be turned into an object for sale.

“The sex slave is the ultimate of a commodified body, which I think we are numbed to with all this advertising,” she says. “We’re so used to the female body being commodified.”

Women can be used to sell anything from insurance to perfumes to vacations, Segrest says. Even a phone book advertisement uses a young woman in a tight yellow shirt to draw attention to the publication, and an Internet domain registration Web site uses a large-breasted woman in a tight shirt to lure online customers.

Social activist and media literacy proponent Jean Kilbourne , who with Diane E. Levin co-authored the newly released book, “So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids,” maintains that turning a human being into an object invites abuse.

“When women are constantly shown as objects, the abuse and the violence makes a chilling kind of sense,” she says.

Kilbourne, whose attention to media awareness has been ongoing since the late 1960s, says advertising has a tremendous effect on how men and women operate and view one another, and themselves, in a society.

In her book, “Can’t Buy My Love,” published in 1999, Kilbourne reported companies at the time were spending more than $200 billion on advertising per year.

“If you’re like most people, you think that advertising has no effect on you,” she writes in the book’s opening chapter. “When (Victoria’s Secret) paraded bra-and-panty-clad models across screens for a mere 30 seconds” during the 1999 Super Bowl, “one million people turned away from the game to log on to the Web site promoted in the ad. No influence?”

Kilbourne said in 2003 that the average American was exposed to 3,000 advertisements a day.

In a presentation titled “The Naked Truth: Advertising’s Image of Women,” Kilbourne says the first step in committing a violent crime is to dehumanize the victim. She adds that many advertisements reinforce the idea that a woman’s body is an object.

Scott A. Lukas, chairman of anthropology and sociology at Lake Tahoe Community College and creator of GenderAds. com, a Web site that analyzes advertising images that relate to gender, also says sex slavery goes back to objectification and forms of dehumanization.

“It’s hard to ignore it’s a big issue in our society,” he says. “It says, ‘This person is different from us, this person is less than us, so we can do what we want to them. There’s a movement toward something that leads to breaking down personal barriers that would normally prevent them from doing something wrong.”

Joan C. Chrisler , Psychology professor at Connecticut College and an American Psychological Association and Association for Psychological Science fellow, says the media, in general, is largely responsible for how women are viewed in today’s society.

“Certainly advertising is a big one, but not the only one. Music videos, movies, video games … in cartoons, women’s bodies are often sexualized even if they’re animals,” she says.

The YouTube video “Generation M: Misogyny in Media and Culture ,” released on Aug. 6, provides images of advertisements objectifying women and clips from Gangsta Rap videos portraying women as barely dressed collectibles, symbols of the wealth and status of their male collectors.

Educator Jackson Katz, one of the country’s leading anti-sexist male activists, warns in the video that another generation of women is being trained to please men, “and to know their second-class status — and not complain about it.”

But someone must have complained. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said in the June 4 release of the Eighth Annual Trafficking in Persons Report that the United States has devoted more than $500 million in the last seven fiscal years to combat human trafficking globally.

However, the only sure way to substantially curb the success of the sex slave industry is to somehow eliminate demand.

(Originally published Friday, September 26, 2008 in the Journal Inquirer)

Note to editor: The following images were taken from the genderads.com website. There are plenty more like it if you find something else you like:

I was originally pretty pleased at the Guitar Hero World Tour commercials. I liked that the first one, at least, showed a group of guys hanging out in comfy, even kinda sexy, clothing, rocking out like dorks. Typically representations of masculinity perform "boundary maintenance" (see "Fraternal Bonding", which interestingly enough specifically talks about athletes), which is about displaying masculinity through sexism and homophobia; so often in commercials, the "cool guys" are the womanizing-objectifying type (not that the first GH didn't have at least one of those in there), not the male bonding through semi-sexy fun type. So the initial commercial, at least, thwarted my expectation by not giving into the the sexist-homophobic construction of masculinity typically seen. The first one featured several male athletes (Plelps, A-Rod, Tony Hawk, Kobe Bryant) rocking it out in someone's living room a la Risky Business, and several more have followed including American Idol stars David Archuleta and David Cook, High School Musical actor/singer Corbin Blue, and most recently model Heidi Klum. Except they're not really a la Risky Business.

In Risky Business, Cruise dances around the living room in a long-sleeved button-down t-shirt, barely long enough to cover his ass, and nothing else is visible until the end when you see he has skimpy tighty whities on. In the GH commercials, the guys are dancing around in replica dress shirts and long, white boxers. Not 100% authentic, but I didn't think anything of it because it's a daytime commercial, and I figured they probably didn't want it too seductive. That logic only held until I saw the Klum ad, where she wears (big surprise!) only the barely long enough dress shirt--no white shorts.

Why the discrepancy? Does this go back to the idea that sexualizing women's bodies is acceptable for general consumption, but men's bodies are (generally) off limits? What's especially interesting to me here is that the original context of the parody was the sexual one--it's not like they changed the commercial to make the one with the woman more sexual; rather they specifically desexualized the men's commercials, and in doing so, deviated from its original context. It doesn't bother me that they deviated; it's that they deviated from, and desexualized, only the ones with the men.

My parent's generation had heavy petting at the drive in. My generation had something called rainbow parties, which, shockingly enough, are probably not real.

What heinous activities are today's teens up to? Why, posting nude pics of themselves on the internets!

Survey: Teens sharing nude images online
Recent survey finds that sex, tech and teens make bad bedfellows

According to the results of a survey released today by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com, 22 percent of all teen girls -- and 11 percent of teen girls ages 13-16 years old -- say they have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude images of themselves.

And these racy images are also getting passed around: One-third (33 percent) of teen boys and one-quarter (25 percent) of teen girls say they have had nude/semi-nude images -- originally meant to be private -- shared with them.

Statistics! Sweet mother of god! This must be a real trend! And we can't even lock the teens up in their rooms because that's where their computers are!

For some teens, like 16-year-old Megan, the downside to "sex-ting" quickly became apparent. "I was with my friend and we were busy texting a couple of boys we were friends with at the time," Megan recalled. "And they sent us a picture of them without their shirts on, and we just kind of decided to send one back."

So I got up today and went to check my email. When I did so I saw this.

I thought that this article would be very interesting. My answer to the question "Men or Women?" was automatically women. I thought it might be talking about abortion of female babies, feminicide in export processing zones like those in Northern Mexico, or maybe even violence against women in general.

I was wrong. When I clicked the link up came a video from Fox News discussing how males are the disappearing "gender".

I put gender in quotes because sex and gender are different things. The easiest way to describe the difference is that sex is between the legs and gender is between the ears.

I recently found an ad that scared the shit out of me. New York Magazine did a list of the "Best & Worst of December Fashion Magazines," including a "Most Disturbing Ad" for the suitmaker Duncan Quinn. Well done, Duncan, you sure deserved this win. Not only is it entirely unnecessary (you're selling a suit, no?), it's scary and hateful.

See ad below jump.

I was watching the fourth hour of the Today show hosted by Hoda and Kathy Lee a couple of days back. (Yes, I do have that kind of time in my hands!)

So, they have this section where this smart looking woman comes along and does a segment on computer accessories-USB drives, external hard drives and the likes. That's all fine and dandy, but the guest lady, during the course of her monologue uses supposedly dense phraseology like "USB" and "hard drive", but hurries to point out that she won't bore the hosts with technical jargon. This she repeats at least a couple of times in her oh, 4 minute segment.

I mean, come on! Are USB and hard drive technical mumbo jumbo? Are we to understand that two middlge aged, TV show hosts, one of whom has a background in journalism, are so out of touch with technology that they are clueless about USB?

Would the guest have been just as dismissive of tech. jargon had she been on a segment with say, Matt Lauer or Al Roker?

Why, oh why, do we continue to perpetuate these falsehood about women and technology?

Hoda and Kathy Lee, please, please, please, be quick to point out to your future guests that you are not afraid of technology!

There's a game coming out featuring a female protagonist in a very Devil May Cry kinda game.

It's called Bayonetta.

Not much is known yet but the protagonist is a witch, fighting monster/angels with guns and not just any guns. But with one on each hand and one on each boot... and in my opinion that's really kinda awesome...

but then the crotch shot... if you want to see what I mean check out the trailer here (not safe for work)

Even for video games the objectification is extreme.

However the thought struck me as I listened to Bayonetta talk... she was very tongue and cheek and it reminded me of another extreme character whom I happen to love: Naga The Serpent from Slayers with her 'Battle Bikini'

Slayers is an affectionate parody of the fantasy genre. Naga is a satire of the chain-mail-bikini trope much to the ire of main character Lina Inverse, the sensibly dressed red head. Naga goes through the movies and OVAs as a big ditz who nonetheless is a talented sorceress whom Lina can't seem to shake after Naga declares herself Lina's Greatest Rival.

I started to think... could Bayonetta be a complete satire of video games these days? We all know women in video games rarely escape the role of sexual object, could Bayonetta actually being making a statement the way Naga pokes fun of the same trope in fantasy stories? It is a very short and vague trailer and Bayonetta breaks the fourth wall showing she could be very genre savvy...

Or am I just kidding myself? After all one of the things that makes Naga work is her juxtaposition with Lina. So far Bayonetta has no such counterpart. Given the track record of video games these days the idea that this game is anything but what it appears to be at first glance seems almost insanely optimistic. Maybe I just really want the game to not be so blatantly offensive because... well those gun boots are cool and I want them...

One thing I do know, satire or not, if the game is going to shove Bayonetta's crotch in my face in every cut scene I'll be too busy feeling physically ill to enjoy any ass-kicking with gun-boots...

I've been seeing this in the mainstream media lately, and I'm just wondering your thoughts on this. Recently a 9-year old boy from Colorado has written a book called "How to Talk to Girls" (see more info here )...basically it's a love and dating advice book, which originally started out at a pamphlet that he sold at his school.

There are several things that irks me about this; from the sexualiation of children, especially young girls, to the media spotlight/circus that is being focused on a young child. Also I can never get past the idea that people can produce movies and books with titles like "how to talk to girls" and "what women want" as if one person, a male usually, knows categorically how all women are, what we want, like, need, how we behave, act, etc?! Many of the quotes that I have read from this book are, frankly, sexist cliches regurgitated as dating advice. So, I can't help but think that books like this only perpetuate the idea of women as sex objects; solely for the purpose of male attainment/pleasure. Here are some quotes:

This has been my comment taken and edited from the following article.

Although I find this article filled with blatant sexism and heterosexism I can say that I agree with some of its more solid points.

Society does project a certain standard that men and women are meant to follow, in terms of beauty. More often than not it is portrayed in the media. Shows like "America's Next Top Model" put men and women into standards that make them feel like they are "not enough," that women are not "beautiful enough" or "thin enough". That is what irritates me. Women are told to be pretty, "get the guy with your looks, not your brains". He does illustrate an interesting point, plastic surgery is mutilation. Mutilation of: genitals, breasts, face...etc. So is the act of piercing for beauty...to knowingly keep your body from properly healing. It is unnatural. High-heels are another beauty standard that is unhealthy, they destroy your body if worn too much. Don't get me started on hair removal.

I would like to make one thing clear, he does not seem to understand the difference between sex and gender. Gender is the product of society. Sex is what you are born with. We are not turning, as a culture, toward the removal of gender (as you seem to argue). Instead we are reinforcing it. Even though more women are working out of the home they are told to be feminine and girly, to wear high-heels, to be masculine, to be aggressive, the same goes for men; it is a constant barrage of conflicting ideals. Instead of offering a solution to this apparent problem he seems to be reflecting this ideal in his argument that short hair is masculine while too much makeup is too feminine.

Society is formed through hierarchy, and by telling a person that they are the "other", the "unnatural", the "imperfect", it makes the oppressor "look good." I say hierarchy rather than patriarchy (like some feminists would argue) due to the many levels of oppression (sexism, heterosexism, racism, ageism, ableism, classism...etc) that affect all genders and classes. The media definitely has fun with that one...it is the ultimate of oppressors.

That being said, I agree with his notion that using sex to sell a product is in effect pornography and is dehumanizing (and kind of creepy in some cases). However, I do not think that it is the product of women being "strong and independent". It is the reinforcement and product of the hierarchical system mentioned above. It is also rather impractical to sell a product with sex when the product itself is not a sex object. This system objectifies women, and in rarer instances, men.

Gender is the product and sex is used to sell it, which is unfortunate.

I would like to introduce myself as a twenty year old white female who was born in one of America’s most racially diverse cities, New York City, but was raised in a white, middle class suburb in central New Jersey. Fortunately, I attend one of the nation’s most ethnically diverse universities; New Jersey’s very own Rutgers University. I currently reside and am spending my undergraduate career at Rutgers’ New Brunswick campus. For those of you who are unaware, New Brunswick is a socioeconomically and racially diverse city which adds to the appeal to so many of the University’ students. The ethnic diversity of students, large campuses (there are four to be exact), and an urban environment were all influential aspects of the university’s appeal to me as a high school student who was unsure where to attend college. I yearned to break out of the bubble I call suburbia and learn from others who were different from my friends and me.

When I came to college, I was thrown into a melting pot of other newbies to this whole college experience and was overwhelmed with a desire to learn as much as I can in and out of the classroom. By making new friends while keeping in touch with my old ones from high school, I began to notice cross cultural similarities and differences between my new multi-racial groups of friends. When discussing our childhood experiences and what our families are like, I began to realize that despite differences in skin color, we are all fundamentally the same when it comes to certain topics of interest. Even our taste in music, movies, and extracurricular activities did not seem to differ greatly. Why then, is it so important for race to be the topic of conversation for many and the basis of controversy in music, film, and politics? It is unfortunate that race is and always will be the basis of identity and controversy in the media.

Some questions to answer…
What do the Disney movies convey to the young girls?
Are Disney movies influencing young girls in such a way that they are misguided for the future?
Why do Disney princesses attract the young girls so much?

As someone whose childhood was not set in the U.S.,  I didn’t grow up with the typical Disney princesses.  My experience with Disney went as far as reading the stories in a book and watching “Lion King” millions of times.  I guess because I liked animals far better than princesses. 

Now working on this project for my Women, Culture, and Society class, I forced myself to watch the movies, the classics.  I buried myself in VHS all weekend and went through Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, Mulan, Aladdin, Cinderella, Snow White (my friend didn’t have Little Mermaid, lucky for me) and it was quite torture actually.  First of all, I never did like singing in movies, so it was painfully dry during those parts, but deeper issues are at hand.  I couldn’t believe that I was watching these ridiculous storylines!  Character development was nonexistent and of course the process of the girl and boy falling in love is more fast-paced than I would’ve liked if it was my own personal life.  But that’s not the whole truth about me or you perhaps.

So what exactly was Walt trying to do when he started down the path of creating these stories of great imaginations?  He obviously has children in mind that’s for sure.  The uncomplicated plots, the hero saves the girl and they fall in love to live happily ever after (not in the case of Pocahontas).  This creates this perfect little bubble for children to reside in, and of course I can understand why.  Anyone who intentionally takes away the innocence of children is a monster in a very abstract sense.  Not saying that kids should be kept innocent forever and always, just that Walt Disney was making sure that children are given this perfect image of love and hope so that their innocence is preserved.  But is this the best way to be leading our (well at least yours, I’ve got none) children?  My classmates say that their dreams were crushed as they grew up and matured into young women.  Me, on the other hand, even though never really grew up with the stories, still longs for that perfect story to take place in my life (fine, I admit it, I want to be loved).

Awesome B.S. calling in this clip:

As someone who grew up listening to this odious excuse for a human being, this was wonderful. 

Via Womanist Musings.

The crackpots and these women: President-Elect Barack Obama formally announced his national security team on Monday, and women are poised to hold up half the nation. Secretary of State designee Hillary Clinton, United Nations Ambassador designee Dr. Susan Rice, and Homeland Security Secretary designee Janet Napolitano were three of the six appointments. Theirs will be the responsibility for facing down dictators and human rights violators, preventing terrorism, and repairing the United States' global reputation.

New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whose appointment was leaked before many people bought the cranberry sauce last week, will be nominated to succeed Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State. 

To read the full newsmix, click here.

I wish I could place this under the category of, "No, really ," because it's that appalling.  Burger King has managed to make virginity yet again a commodifiable concept in the oddest way possible: the Whopper Virgins .

We, as white capitalist Americans, will exoticize these odd foreign peoples, make sure they dress in ethnic clothing they may or may not commonly even wear, treat them like innocent children to be spoiled, and then profit and satisfy our own desires for  amusement by ruining aformentioned innocence though feeding them fast food! (And make sure to add an extra veneer of acceptability by calling it a documentary.)

Brilliant !

...and sexless Moms are, at least partially, on the way out.

You know the sexless Moms I'm talking about. They wear boxy V-necks over button-shirts with doily-collars, or pink-tan sweaters hanging hip-length over baggy pants. They have faces you'll forget the moment they turn their heads. Commercial moms aren't really women; they don't have sex, they rarely look feminine, and if they do, it's in a matronly way. It's also better if they aren't attractive – if they were, if their hair bounced and flowed and if they had breasts and identifiable waists (or any shape at all), they would have something much better to do than to fall on their hands and knees to scrub the toilet base screw-joints, or disinfect every possible infectible surface with a disinfecting spray.

Leave it to the Moms to do it. Moms will do everything! You got a stink-mess? Yo, Mom'll solve it. And what about that Clorox™ jingle? "Mama keeps whites fresh like the sunshine, mama uses the magic of Clorox Two™." Mama does it. No one but mama knows how to use Clorox™. Or how to do laundry, for that matter.

At least, that's what the ads would have us believe.

Moms aren't just doing it; they're loving it. Recall the woman gleefully dusting her friend's house during an afternoon tea before her friend catches her and accuses, "Are you dusting again?"

C'mon…everyone knows women jones for dusting if they go a day without! We'll ransack your house for a Swiffer™, we will! If we can't find one, you might find us scrubbing your shower grout between servings of diet cakelettes.

It's not just cleaning, though. After wiping up the cranberry spill with the hefty paper towels no one but Mom seems to know how to use, a new job presents itself: how to find a way to accommodate the unpredictable schedule of the family members come dinnertime? This, too, is done with unfathomable pleasure and selflessness. Dad works, and the kids are busy playing and socializing. Mom is, of course, eternally inside the house. The only time Mom leaves the house is to shop, or to watch the soccer game that will dirty her son's clothes, thereby giving her the (no doubt eagerly-awaited) opportunity to use her Clorox Two™. Sure, she shakes her head disapprovingly at the muddy patch on those once-white shorts, but just look at her face when she picks up the Clorox® bottle. Nothing short of sheer lust.

What is it with remakes of classic designed villainesses in full body spandex being redesigned to show more skin?.

Harley Quinn was a character originally made for a single appearence in Batman the animated series, a hench-woman for The Joker. Her character unexpectantly took off with fans to the degree that she now has a few comics of her own and has appeared alongside the Joker in recent game adaptions.

The newest game to come out is the upcoming Batman: Arkham Asylum with Joker as the main villain. I read recently that Harley Quinn will be appearing in the game.

It's surprising that a game that must have at some time referenced Batman The Animated Series would forget one of the main reasons it was so popular. 'Fans took Batman TAS seriously because it took them seriously.'

Batman: Arkham Asylum looks to be trying to be as 'darker and edier' as possible. Missing the fact that adding sex and violence will not appeal to mature audiences as a whole if they are not dealt with in a mature way.

Harley Quinn's new 'outfit' is said in the article to be a'a corset and short skirt combo.' the more I think about it the less excited I am to play the game. Harley's costume has been just as iconic as joker or batman's. She's a henchmen and a super villain in her own right but we're apparently going to be fighting her in an outfit that sounds like she was out clubbing? Add to this that Harley is a rather tragic character and that her relatioship with the Joker is abusive (he has tried to kill her once or twice) and I get even more worried about how Arkham Asylum is going to handle her.

I haven't seen pictures yet but in the mean time I'll be drawing my own redesign pictures to prove it didn't have to go this way and possibly drawing revenge pictures of Bats and Joker in inappropriate outfits...

So I was listening to the radio a little earlier when they announced that Katy Perry, singer of hit songs "I Kissed A Girl" and "Hot N' Cold" (I think) will be preforming on YouTube, for millons. Let me remind you that these are the people we can't reach when we sit in their class rooms and define words like acceptance, abuse, empowerment and gender. It begs me to wonder who is paying for her to come on one of the world's most effective world wide information sharing systems to pump her over defined gender sterotypes.

"I kissed a girl and I liked it" sounds like oh, maybe that could be a good song to help create awareness and foster an welcoming for the lesbian community. But then it switches and you hear something about how it's okay because she has a boyfriend and you start to realize, hmph... never mind, no one's ever going to be on my side and get that much airtime.

Then her next single hits the airwaves and in her smooth voice you hear the words "you change your mind like a girl changes clothes" well, if that hasn't already sent you spiraling.. you find out she's getting free advertising on YouTube. Marvelous.

My question; who's paying for this? Who is using her full, lullaby perfected voice to undo all of our progress? Because, it is starting to look like one hell of an effective tool.

Ever since a friend mentioned this to me it has bugged me, but recently I have finally gotten around to looking at this
People take pictures of strangers walking around minding their own business and post it to this website so people can judge their fashion or more often, their bodies. This makes me nervous when I go out in public, I wonder if someone is taking a picture of me without my permission and putting it online. What do you all think of this?

A local club comes out with these advertisements about once a week. They end up all over our school and tucked under the windshield wipers of all of the cars.

This gives new (and terrifying) meaning to supporting our troops.

...I never go to the club without my boa of ammo.

Liquid Ice...Liquid Fail.

After her husband became the first black president of the US on Nov. 4, Michelle Obama made "the power statement of her political career" earlier this week when she... wore a red dress to the White House. What's more, that statement was apparently that she is "powerful but not threatening."

Yeah, they went there.

It's probably true that at this time, in this campaign, Barack Obama winning the presidency was the most important goal. And the article does pay lip service to the fact that double standards that make it necessary to "soften" smart (and black, but they don't say that ) women are unfair.

But if that's so, then why does this article claim that making "The Dress her uniform" is the most important message we've gotten from her? Why is her "power statement" supposedly that she is "too feminine" and "sexy" to be "sitting in on cabinet meetings"? That's not power, sounds more like subordination.

Michelle Obama has made, and will continue to make, incredibly powerful and important statements. And they have nothing to do with dresses or being "too feminine" to do anything.

As I perused the CNN headlines with my morning tea I came across this title-
"My REAL life as a call girl."

Intrigued and thinking perhaps here was a counterpoint to the glamorous portrayals of prostitutes found on TV I decided to take a peek. This heading caught my eye right away, half-way down the page- "Victims or not?" Seeing red I started to read CNN's attempt at a fair and balanced discussion of the sex work industry and the women in it. What I found was a half-hearted attempt at discussing the harsh and complicated reality of sex work amidst a lot of talk of the celebrity call girls and their fabulous lives. Perhaps others on this site have different views, but it just really escapes me how this is even a question. Do you see a lot of privileged white men with all opportunities available to them taking the "easy way out" and turning to sex work to pay the bills? Because you know, its so self-affirming and sensual and in no way degrading or psychologically damaging. This issue is very personal to me due to the prostitution ring that frequents my Boston neighborhood and the time I have spent talking to these women (a lot of them mere girls really) or simply sitting in my window at night and watching them walk the streets, getting in and out of cars while their strung out boyfriends or pimps sit in a doorway nearby sipping a slurpee and snacking on Cheetos. Now I am not saying there aren't some good parts to this article, but all in all, it falls far short of the sort of thoughtful discussion this topic deserves. Ugh, note to self- avoid CNN before the caffeine has set in.

There have been many posts criticizing PETA’s ad campaigns on Feministing, and really, it’s easy to see why.  PETA consistently uses naked female bodies in its advertising, a tactic which seems to promote the objectification and sexualization of women as well as encourage the use of certain bodies (read: white, young, beautiful) in the media.  Still, I wonder, in what ways do PETA’s campaigns subvert social norms and empower women?

I came to this question after reading an enlightening article, “Image events and PETA's anti fur campaign,” by Lesli Pace.  In the piece, Pace dissects PETA’s *anti-fur campaign from a traditional feminist perspective (as Feministing has done time and again) and then from her own perspective.  I won’t recap the traditional feminist perspective, because I think most know it, but here is a summary of her own thoughts on the matter:

I just wanted to call your attention to the new "Things Are Getting Interesting" Remy Martin advertising campaign, and in particular the image (posted prominently near Penn Station in Manhattan) depicting two women in chains (one African-American, one Caucasian, looking for some reason really quite ecstatic and as if they are about to eat each other alive). The image is also available at www.getinteresting.com .

The press release for the campaign quotes Vincent Duhem, Vice President of Marketing for the company, Remy Cointreau, USA, Inc.(RCUSA), and mentions that the campaign was developed by the advertising agency La Comunidad. I plan to write to both companies and am interested in hearing your thoughts on the image.

I'm hoping to engage others who have found the ads upsetting in expressing their views in the most effective way possible. Somehow I don't think feminist women are their target audience, do you? So I don't know what effect a letter-writing campaign could have in itself. Any suggestions? I'm basing this on the ad, common sense, and the press release itself, which explicitly spells out the target audience of "influential, social, and multicultural urban males, ages 25 to 35".)

Thanks for listening,

K.

Hi, I just wanted to comment on a recent book search I was doing on BarnesandNoble.com. I was searching the bestsellers of the "Gender Studies" section and the ENTIRE FIRST PAGE was a list of books either by men or about men and boys, i.e. how to understand boys and men's souls.... Sad for me, a women's studies/sociology major, that I thought that the first thing that would pop up would be books along the lines of Jessica and Courtney's. I guess that just exemplifies how much we live in a world of "man-as-norm". 

I

While I've just about had enough of this election and am totally ready for it to be over, this article points out a really interesting facet of this election cycle.

The View is sounding more and more like Fox News.

If it bothers you, like it bothers me, that there is a right wing nut, talking, yelling and cancelling out the other voices on Barbara Walters show the View, please write Bill, the View's producer about it. Click on Ask the View

Didjall hear about this? Yay!

As the title says, this add has it all... all wrong! and their Nando companions in YouTube are not any better, they include a woman dressed in a suit that turns out to be a pole dancer, and a so-called Kareem Ramadan craving for Nando's chicken! Not funny at all!

I met Lilly the other week and we got to talking about The Secret Life of an American Teenager, a show I've never seen, and I urged her to write a post on it. Check out her totally savvy analysis.
-Courtney

ABC Family’s new show, The Secret Life of an American Teen, demeans girls for being sexual and reinforces the good girl stereotype of quiet girls defined by their boyfriends.

The show begins when “band-geek” Amy discovers that, after a one night tryst at band camp, she is pregnant. The father is Ricky, the school’s resident player. Ricky is compelled to deflower girls and ruin their innocence just as his was taken from him; we later discover that Ricky, who is now in the foster care system, was sexually abused as a child. Instead of considering that teenagers are horny, The Secret Life decides the only reason a teenager would want to have sex is due to a profound psychological disturbance.

I've just read this wonderful article on The F word , By Ananya, who is wise beyond her 10 years!

 I can't tell you how happy it's made me to read such a wonderful article by such a young, intelligent girl. Because girls ARE good at stuff that's much more interesting than clothes and make up.

'I really think it’s time people picked all these ideas up and started producing magazines for girls which are more fun, more exciting and on more interesting topics.'

Ananya you made my day!

I remember reading 'girl talk' as a kid and finding it so boring an inane, while it's sad to see not much has changed it's great to see not everyone's putting up with it!

While watching Robot Chicken's Season 2 DVD, I came across this...um... piece of 'coal' in a mist of diamonds. This disapoints me in a way I cannot describe. I generally love Robot Chicken and find the show hilarious... I absolutely love and crave the crazy low-fi stop motion aesthetic. It's hard to make slap-stick comic timing in stop motion animation and do it well. They do that. (Trigger warning)

I've recently started seeing commercials for a local business called Mother's Window Tint.  They specialize in tinting car windows, car alarm installation, stereo and DVD player installation, that sort of thing.

Well these commercials feature a bunch of young women called "Mama's Girls."  They use these "aspiring models" in their TV and radio commercials.  And in the commercial they've been running for the last couple of weeks, "Mama's Girls" are exploited shamelessly.  They're wearing short skirts and skin-tight tank tops that have various services Mother's offers scrawled right across their breasts.  The camera zooms in on their boobs at an angle that leaves very little to the imagination.  And all this is paired with an advert for $99 tint or alarm, which in my opinion contributes to the way these women are cheapened.

Not to mention the name of the place: Mother's.   I guess it could be worse, but it annoys me that a fundamental female role has been attached to something like this.  Ugh.

And hey, I found a website.  You can see the commercial I'm talking about under "Mama's Tube."

The good news is that apparently they have really bad customer service.  I hope business sucks.

I'm taking a class about women, men and the media.  Right now we're talking about images of women in the media and how it affects women and their attitudes about beauty and such.  So much of the articles talk about the effect on the minds of women when they view the images portrayed in the media.   But, I think that all these articles forget about a really important aspect of all of this.  What about the effects on the minds of men when they see these images?  I'm sick of hearing all this talk about how women are letting these unreal ideals of beauty make them feel less worthy.  I want to hear SOMETHING  about the responsibility that men bear in this as well.  Because, as women, we look at the majority of those women and KNOW  that we can never look like that, and most of us are probably pretty okay with that.  After all, we've had our entire life to come to terms with the fact that we're not 5'9'' or a D cup or whatever it is. 

I saw this ad in the San Francisco Bay Guardian today and thought I'd share. On the website they're selling "Sarah Palin glasses"

So I've recently graduated from college. As a part of that, I was required to pen an academic paper on the topic of my choice relating to my major. When it was halfway done, the teacher told me to find places to publish it, because having something published looks really great on a resume, and because she felt it was a really interesting piece.

Apparently, offending my sense of humor was not enough, so he decided to add racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia to the list.

His and Todd Goldman's latest creation is Blah Girls , a series of highly unfunny shorts in the vein of "Teen Girl Squad." Only that if "Teen Girl Squad" is the height of humor, "Blah Girls" is somewhere around Meet the Spartans .

Just a few reasons to hate the series: The black character rarely starts a sentence without "Yo!," androgynous celebrities are "fashion tranny trainwrecks," effeminite gay female stereotypes, and repeatedly insulting womens' intelligence.

Also, the repeated use of "bitch." I'm fully in favor of repossesion, but you can fuck right the hell off, Kutcher.

After all, it's totally revolutionary to make fun of how all girls really care about is celebrities, fashion, and tearing other women apart!

Oh, and one final reason to hate the series: it's plastered with ads for Vitamin Water and Todd Goldman's David and Goliath Tees (Of "Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them." fame).

I'll take my internet memes Corporate America free, thank you very much.

For ten years, Bitch magazine has been the place I've turned to for feminist analysis of all things pop culture. Bitch created a space where rigorous discussion could take place from all kinds of feminist perspectives without privileging any particular point of view. Funded by a B-Word Worldwide, a nonprofit organization, Bitch has faced the same kind of struggles as other independent media outlets: rising postage costs, fewer donations and the difficulty of staying truly independent as all media becomes increasingly supported by advertising. For more about Bitch and their mission, check out their About Us page.

Like other non-profits and other independent media, everyone at Bitch has been working hard to do the kind of innovative development work that's needed to continue to publish. Unfortunately, all of their efforts haven't been enough to bring Bitch to stable financial footing, and their next issue may be their last.

For those of you who know and love Bitch , this is your opportunity to give a little something back to keep the magazine running – every donation counts! If you've never read an issue before – look for it at your local bookstores and newstands or check out some of the back issues . If you fall in love, subscribe , donate or become a monthly sustainer – every dollar helps to guarantee we'll all get to continue reading Bitch 's singular style of independent, feminist analysis!

My mom was just watching the USA network and came in to tell me about a commercial she just saw by Ecko jeans wherein very hot model ladies in very small bikinis are shown making clothes in a factory.  I youtubed it.

I googled looking for articles that talk about this campaign in any way but only found what reads like a press release that includes this quote::

" Ecko Manufacturing is a demonstration of our brand's commitment to fulfilling the desire of our customers to have fashion that is specifically designed for their needs ," said Mike Golden, Chief Marketing Officer, Marc Ecko Enterprises.  "Hot girls make great clothes, and this campaign allows our customers to gain insight into our unique production process and techniques."  

emphasis mine.

From the article titled:

Made With Love: Ecko Manufacturing Reveals the Sexy Side of the Factory

Really?! 

REALLY?! 

I need to sleep on this before I even begin to respond.

Oh, New York Times. The journalist in me loves you, but the feminist in me hates you.

I mean, come on: "The debate on mothers?" Are we debating whether they exist, or what? I think your copy editors can do better than that.

And what about this quote? "Ms. Palin has set off a fierce argument among women about whether there are enough hours in the day for her to take on the vice presidency, and whether she is right to try."

If mothers aren't allowed to have lives and careers, sign me up to get my tubes tied.

Don't try to tell me it's not sexist if it's written by women, New York Times. I can see through that; I know your tricks. I can read you like you're printed broadsheet style and distributed to over a million people.

Seriously, NYT: If you don't cut the sexist crap I may have to leave you for the Washington Post (but don't worry, darling, I would never stoop to USA Today).

A fascinating traversal of the contrasting--and, today, often neglected--strands of the women's rights movement from the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries.

Sarah Palin, McCain's VP pick is openly anti-choice, opposing abortions even in cases of rape and incest. She has been a member of "Feminists for Life" since 2006. So why is Fox news labeling her as pro-choice? Just because she is a woman? Or are they trying to confuse pro-choicers?

Via News Hounds.