04.30.08
On Becoming a Sexual Female, via Miley Cyrus
I tend to agree* with this analysis of the photos of Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair that we’ve seen so far from Vanity Fair, that they’re not “that bad.”
*sidenote: Except that the bare skin and sultry looks are for your prom friends, not the American Celebritocrical Gaze. And typically you go to the prom at 17-18, not the age of 15. Mir Kamin makes the distinction quite well between these images and simply wearing a backless dress:
For me, my problem lies with the fact that she’s underage and I find the picture intentionally sexual. It’s not her naked back — it’s her tousled hair, her come-hither look, and the bed-sheet-esque cover; all of those things together combine to portray a post-coital vixen.
(end of side-note)
But the whole thing still troubles me for a few reasons I know, and probably some I can’t articulate yet. And I think the question of whether the images themselves are “that bad” isn’t the real issue here. Read the rest of this entry »
Mid-Week Recommended Reading
Recommended articles and blog posts from the week so far… Read the rest of this entry »
04.29.08
Fighting Against Breast Cancer…and Also Against Breast Cancer Campaigns
I don’t remember exactly what brought this issue to my attention– it may have been this blog post I read, which prompted me to do some additional research. But I’m pretty irritated. And frustrated.
It’s the Breast Cancer awareness campaigns and anti-breast cancer t-shirts that are being manufactured, bought and worn. Disclaimer: I am 100% in favor of fund-raising, awareness, education, what have you, about breast cancer.* That’s not what this is about. However, the way advocacy is framed is just as important as the advocacy, for the “way you say it” speaks just as much as “what you say.”
Why am I annoyed? The message of recent campaigns, advertising, and t-shirts are centered around the idea that we need to catch breast cancer early and research for a cure in order to save breasts. Silly me, I thought we fight against cancer to save lives. And if that weren’t bad enough, the reason “the breasts” must be saved will make you puke a little in your mouth. Because men love ‘em. Read the rest of this entry »
04.26.08
Weekend Recommended Reading
Your dose of weekend reading material! Read the rest of this entry »
04.25.08
Sexualized Ads Become "Obscene" When Guys are the Objects
So this video and news issue is a wee bit old, but the idea it raises isn’t at all.
Apparently an in-store Abercrombie ad campaign (see video below) received complaints for being too sexual/obscene. Abercrombie has been doing this for years, for example, depicting cartoons of topless girls (yeah, they looked awful young) in pools and having threesomes in their catalog back when I worked in the mall 10 years ago. And in this day and age of hypersexualization of women’s bodies and the general pornification of everyday life, you would think these ads must be awfully revealing to be so scandalous.
The thing is, the ads aren’t that revealing. Not by far, and especially not compared to most ads we see everywhere. we. look.
Except that most sexualized ads we see are of women’s bodies (I said most-I am well aware of the sexual and homoerotic tones of several cologne ads). However, the Abercrombie campaign includes some sexy images…of guys. And the marketing target is upper-middle class, heterosexual teens, both female and male.
This is the part that struck me most:
“there’s half naked guys running around–it’s obscenity–is Playboy able to hang naked pictures in their store?”
Um, sorry dude, but the half naked men shown in Abercrombie ads is not the same as fully naked Playboy pictures. Like, at all. It’s more like Victoria’s Secret ads (and even then not quite the same there either)…and oh yeah, they are able to show those, and not only in their stores, but on billboards, the sides of buses, every f*cking magazine you pick up, not to mention, the goddamn TV!! Read the rest of this entry »
2nd Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy
AThe 2nd edition of the Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy is up at Labryinth Walk, and it features a great variety of topics and nuanced approaches to issues around sex and sexuality.
04.24.08
58th Carnival of Feminists
Carnival of Feminists No. 58 is up at Be A Good Person. Check it out!
(and 2 of my posts are featured!)
04.23.08
Real Women Have Bodies…Politicians Even
This article from last week on Salon’s Broadsheet just cracked me up. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the leader of the German nation is…a woman!!! And not just that…she has breasts! OMG!
Apparently her appearance at the German Opera in an evening gown with a plunging neckline cause quite a furor. Just more proof that:
And it’s not even sexual!! It’s just some cleavage!! Evidence of having a female body!! Sheesh! (cross-posted to The Reaction)
Mid-week Recommended Reading
Check these out! Read the rest of this entry »
04.22.08
Article in The Nation on KBR, Rape, and the U.S. Government
The Nation posted an article about the problem of government non-involvement in prosecuting contractor rape, specifically in reference to the KBR rape stories from the last 2 years. (see my recent post on this topic)
Worth a read, although it’s appalling, but a few points stuck out to me:
In fact, there are several laws on the books that would allow these cases to proceed: the problem is not a lack of legal tools but a lack of will. [...] But somebody has to want to prosecute the cases.
The article points out the obvious reason why the defense contractors threaten the rape victims with repercussions to keep rapes hush-hush: big $$. Not to mention, the “fine print” of many contracts require the employees to settle through private arbitration rather than through the court system. But as author Huppert points out,
such a financial incentive cannot explain why the Justice Department has failed to act. Although it has the authority to pursue criminal cases involving US military contractor employees, it has hemmed and hawed over even the tiny fraction of cases that have made their way through the maze of obstacles to land in the Justice Department’s offices: [...] “we do have active investigations…somewhere about…somewhere upwards of…somewhere between four and six, I believe is the number.”
Wow, nice work, Justice Department! “Between four and six”? When out of the 684 complaints within it’s jurisdiction, they only court marshalled 83? Unbelievable. This is the big question for me: big business is at stake for the contractors and though deplorable and inexcusable, I at least understand why they try to cover this stuff up. But the government has no direct financial incentive to do so, although much political incentive (they need to keep contractors interested in doing the work!). The thing is, the government has the ability to make the “private arbitration” problem a non-issue:
At the hearing, Nelson dryly observed that there was a very quick way to make sure US contractors did not force employees into private arbitration, and an easy way to force contractors to follow established protocols for sexual assault and harassment: “This might be something you want to require and include in your contracts–before you award them,” he said.
Interfere with the market to protect the interests of rape and sexual assault victims? Our government? Nah…
04.21.08
On ‘Beautiful’ Women Looking ‘Unhuman’
(This post is kind of a smattering of several sites I’ve seen recently about photoshopping the life-literally-out of women in mags and some of my semi-random thoughts on the topic.)
Shakesville has a great analysis of Vanessa Williams’ photos in Ebony vs. what she looks like in real life (to the extent that any image can reflect “real life”). And this photo comparison in a terrific commentary on the beauty of ‘real life’ and the tyranny of photoshop from AfterEllen is quite pointed:
(actually, check out that whole AfterEllen Article with pics–it freakin’ pisses me off that 60 year old women can’t just be beautiful 60 year old women–I absolutely adore that photo there of Helen Mirren!)
It also reminded me of Jezebel’s analysis of Faith Hill (who is 39 and great looking) on the cover of Redbook over the summer, which was equally disturbing.
This professional photo retouching site has some examples of celebrity retouching. Click “portfolio” then choose a thumbnail. Move your cursor on and off the photo to see the photo vs. the retouch. It’s amazing! The untouched photos look like beautiful women still, but they’re beautiful like the “regular” women in our lives are–our friends, lovers-sisters. They’re beautiful, but they have wrinkles, freckles, bags around their eyes, complexions that look–real. Seriously…look at the “before” and “after” of several of those images and after just a few the retouches start to look really creepy and alien. And just think…those are what we’re accustomed to seeing in the mags and internet. Those are what “beautiful people” look like! Freakin’ aliens!
But regarding wrinkles especially, my question is simple: why do insist on an “ideal” female appearance that makes it look like you’ve lived a boring life? Is “correcting” the flaws that come from actually doing things in life via actual cosmetic surgery or the virtual Photoshop “quick fix” in fact more a testament to wealth than to so-called “neutral” and “natural” aesthetics? As in, a reflection that one has the money to surgically or chemically erase the wear and tear of real life off their physical body, or that one has the money to not put the strain of physical labor on one’s body in the first place (which would minimize some but not nearly all of the wear on the physical body–the rest could be “fixed” cosmetically). Not to mention, of course, the economic and time resources required to have the personal trainers, dieticians, fashion consultants, hair and makeup designers, nannies, gardeners…that permit the physical fashioning that goes into being a (predominately female) celebrity.
But since your everyday woman has a job, responsibilities, a limited budget and expendable time, and you know, a life, I s’pose we gotta pay somebody to offer us “the ideal” in the form of oddly bland and, ultimately, boring physical features.
QUICK UPDATE: Feministing had a great post about the need to photoshop curves into magazine images of skinny women. This quote hits it right on the head:
the message is that you should be super, super skinny, borderline skeletal, but without any of the things that come with the territory, like jutting hipbones or small boobs. So even the skinniest celebrities STILL require Photoshopping to meet this standard. You can be less than a size zero and still lose this game.
And this great comment on that thread:
Just because I was bored I copied and pasted these images in photoshop and overlayed them to see what the differences are. Much to my horror (not suprise) she was actually made narrower thru the ribcage and waist in the ‘photoshop’ picture. READ- she was made skinnier! Her muscles were removed, and her arms were made thinner. So in reality- she wasn’t made plumper, she was made curvier and overall narrower. Her hips were also narrowed and made less curvy. Amazing. We all think she looks plumper in the second image, when in reality she is actually narrower, lighter, and slimmer thru the hips.
“Normal” and “heavy” women are photoshopped to remove “excessive” bulk or to at least smooth out their curves–no chunky tummies or rolls allowed (example: this Dove ad). “Thin” women are photoshopped to look not-so emaciated–no bones or thin breasts allowed. To be honest, I’m a pretty thin gal, but I have both a visible breastbone and some bulk around the tummy. That’s just the way bodies are. In the end, we are never seeing what actual “thick” or “thin” women look like, only a oddly perfected version of each.
04.19.08
Weekend Recommended Reading
I decided I’m going to do this as a weekend and mid-week feature, since I get too gosh-darn many to post only weekly. Once again, these are articles and blog posts that I think are worthwhile reads that I either don’t have time to add my extra comment to (although I often give a mini-comment with each listing-I can’t help myself!) or simply require no further comment.
And feel free to comment on a specific article in my reading list if you found it interesting or discussion-worthy!
Without further adieu, the weekend edition:
From Racialicious, “A Different Kind of Asian Image“-a great post about Yuko Shimizu’s illustration art of some pretty fab Asian female’s who are kick-ass tough and sexy too..and not in the stereotypical superficial way. Check out the post!
I love AfterEllen’s birthday tribute to Emma Watson (Hermione in Harry Potter), where they note:
I couldn’t be more thankful that the precocious Ms. Watson has reached this milestone with age-appropriate grace and modesty….Besides being a great student who aced her exit examinations, Emma has been a charming role model for young women everywhere. Aside from one leaked photo of Emma drinking a beer (and just a Corona at that, geez) she has kept herself out of the tawdry tabloid pages. No shots of various exposed body parts. No stories of feuds with celebutants. No word of diva behavior. Like I said, refreshing.
Indeed!
Bitch PhD on the cost of war for various countries. Oh the disparity between the U.S. and every other country!
A few great posts on body image and what women’s bodies are “supposed” to look like:
From Pretty Little Girls, on one female athlete lamenting her body type, which ends (read the post!) with some positive words to her:
But if my body didn’t look like the elite marathoner I was in my daydreams, I was not a true athlete, and I could not tick off the box labeled as such. No matter that I’ve run races, from 5Ks and 10Ks…On top of my muscle — you know, the virtuous weight, the kind we’re allowed — I have boobs and body fat and curves. Athletes have none of those things. Athletes are all skin, bones, muscle, and drive. No fat. I must look like an athlete or none of my athletic accomplishments count, and ergo, neither do I.
And from the livejournal Trouble Is A State Of Mind the statement: Real Women Exist and Take Up Space…a sort of counter to the effects of “real women have curves” message that then redefines “real women” again with a norm. Real women have bodies. Real women take up space in the world. My mini-soapbox: what we must fight against is the notion that women are their bodies, that they reflect their worth as a human being, that women are first bodies before being humans. Off. Soapbox.
An excellent post from Obsidian Wings on how misguided the (racist, idiotic) statements made by Patrick Buchanan suggesting racial minorities should be “grateful” to the American People (exactly when did black people become not part of the American people?) were.
A brilliant comparison between the U.S. and U.K. Cosmo’s at Dirty Rotten Feminist.
I find this attitude much better than the usual grin-and-bear-it version at Cosmo US. I feel our version of Cosmo has made it their mission to shame women into being porned-up fem-bots, willing to do anything to please their man (see this issue’s ”67 New Blow-His-Mind Moves”). However, Cosmo UK told a woman she should not have to do something she doesn’t feel comfortable with, to not take this shit lying down, and throw a nice jab at the pro-porn attitude. I loved it.
A great post by Jill at Feministe about how the prostitutes, not their rich powerful male clients, were forced to testify in the DC Madam trial. The trial was slut shaming at its finest, with fewer social consequences for the guys.
04.18.08
Fair Pay
Today, April 18th, is “Blog for Fair Pay” day, in honor of the fact that today, women will have finally caught up to what men earned income-wise in 2007. Yes, the gendered pay gap means women have to work almost 4 months more to earn what men do. And Angry Black Bitch reminds us it’s even worse for women of color. Designating a day for recognition and advocacy of this is an important tangible reminder of the effects of inequality and sanctioned discrimination.
It kind of reminds me of Tax Freedom Day, the day that the nations has earned enough income to pay our tax bill. Funny, though–(federal) Tax Freedom Day is April 23rd (although this varies by state, mine in New York isn’t until May). That tends to make people pissed–realizing they work 4 months just to pay their government taxes.
But women have to work an extra 4 months to equal what men are paid yearly, which is about the same amount of time “Americans” have to work to pay their tax bill. Thus, , from a conceptual point, the difference in men’s and women’s pay is about the same as the amount of taxes paid by the “average” American. Think about that for a second. Or several.
Then write in your support for the fair pay act, and encourage others to do the same.
cross-posted to The Reaction
WOMEN: Please consider participating in Esquire’s Survery
Via WIMN’s Voices: This is not to endorse Esquire at all, but they are wanting to hear from real, actual women the answer to one question: What is something that men don’t know about women?
Since I am one who loathes men’s magazines and does not cease in perpetually critiquing their phallocentric approach to het relationships with women, this seems like something women ought to participate in. Since, ya know, they’re actually asking. Not that I have a ton of faith in accurate reporting, but hey, it’s worth a try, yes?
Read the info at the WIMN’s Voices link above. Think about it, and make your response articulate and meaningful.
Mother-daughter bonding over waxing? At age 8 ?!?!
First, a really good article at blogher by Mir Kamin about the new trend of mothers taking their 8 year-old daughters to spas…to get bikini waxes. Seriously.
She quotes the fuck shaving livejournal community, where one person commented:
It’s sad that all these moms can’t think of anything else to do to bond with their daughters but go to the spa. What about taking a walk every evening to talk about their day, or cook together, or take up art classes or fucking something else.
[...]
Also, do any other these daughters have fathers? Do any of these women have husbands?
Don’t they have some influence in their lives telling them that they’re beautiful no matter what?
I thought these were great points. Daughters need their fathers and brothers reiterate their personal value beyond their physical appearance. Even more, fathers need to not be hypocrites when it comes to valuing women, having a complex and meaningful ideal of beauty and sexuality, and assigning a health place in life for appearances. Children pick up on non-verbal and implicit cues more than we think. Mothers need to bond with their daughters in ways that don’t feed the patriarchal capitalist beauty machine. Girls should not be sex-objects-in training, despite what synonyms thesaurus.com gives for “girl.”
Philadelphia Magazine had a nauseating article about the spa happenings of the pre-teen rich and famous, enabled by the moms and the almighty dollar-greedy beauty industry.
Melanie Engle was trying to just pluck the stray hairs here and there. She was trying to deliver an age-appropriate eyebrow wax to her client. It was hard, though, because there was a foot tapping next to her, and a voice shouting in her ear: “No! Not like that — like a supermodel’s. I want them arched.”
…
“It’s like, ‘Okay, you’re becoming a woman now, here are the things you’ll need to do as a woman.’”Except, of course, they’re not women. This new, unstoppable desire of mothers to pluck and paint their daughters has created an unexpected conundrum for spa owners and aestheticians, who can’t afford to lose the moms’ lucrative business — but who also don’t want to be partners in crime.
…
The world has changed since my ’tweendom. Look at the media, and its obsession with fame, beauty, youth, celebrities, debutantes, celebutantes. It’s in our faces all the time. It’s in our kids’ faces, too. “It’s like this keeping-up-with-the-Joneses thing has stretched to our kids,” says Dasha Klein, a Main Line mom of an 11-year-old girl at Baldwin. She knows multiple teenagers who’ve gotten boob jobs for Sweet Sixteen presents, and a 20-year-old who gets Botox. “Except they’re trying to keep up with Hollywood — and Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus and whoever else they’re looking at. Well, guess what? You’re in Philadelphia. And you’re a kid. You’re not Angelina Jolie.”
Indeed. And I found this particular part to be especially interesting:
When I was in my teenybopper heyday, there were no pop chicks who I aspired to be. There were boys I aspired to marry. The media world surrounding us made us boy-crazy — maybe not a fabulous thing for a 10-year-old, but at least it didn’t lead my friends and me to inject botulism into our foreheads before we could legally drink. It was innocent: We giggled, swooned, hung posters of Joey Lawrence and Luke Perry, giggled some more. And our moms were … uninvolved. They didn’t drop us at the playground with instructions to bring home the boy who looked the most like Kirk Cameron. They rolled their eyes, bemusedly shaking their heads as they passed by our rooms: Oh, you silly girls. End of story.Not anymore. Today’s girls aren’t looking at posters; they’re looking in the mirror. They have a new obsession — a self-obsession — and it’s being aided and abetted by their mothers. “It’s like this focus on their outer life is trickling down to their daughters,” says Rescue’s Albert. These women have to look a certain way, so inevitably, their young daughters, still under their control, do, too.
When I read this, I thought: that’s it! Recently especially I have been struggling to recall what my 10-16 years were like. All I can seem to come up with is that they are nothing like the pornification of girlhood right now. But the author’s point really resonated with me, and from her boy-crush examples, she is probably around my age. When I was younger, reading Teen and Seventeen, there was a much greater emphasis on the “cute boys” in your fave sitcoms. And the Preferred Stock model, Joel somebody-or-other. As the writer says, that isn’t necessarily something to glorify, but it is quite distinct from what’s happening now: there was indeed more a focus on girls’ (teen) desire, fantasy, and imagination. The focus was less on making yourself the perfect porn-star object of desire. Now, the focus seems to be more who to look like, not whom to look at. It’s a matter of passivity vs. activity, objectification vs. agency, self-scrutiny vs. desire. It’s what feminism has tried so hard to steer against. And somehow more opportunities for girls self-development has been co-opted and become the freedom…to get bikini waxes at age 12. And pleasure has become derived from being pleasing rather than being pleased. At this is where is begins.
This should be a wake-up call for us. Unfortunately, it has all just become part of the game.
Oh, and this I just read about, and I don’t know what to do with it…via Jezebel, “a plunging padded bra for 7-to-8 year olds.” Seriously. And to connect this back to my growing-up years too, as adolescents, we were embarrassed about our bodies, and I don’t think that was a good thing. At all. But it’s interesting how attitudes have swung to the opposite end of the spectrum, yet still has not yielded a more substantial notion of sexual independence and autonomy. It’s a “yes, but…” kind of situation, where yes, we do (have more ‘autonomy’), but in our (still sexist) society, women’s sexual independence still gets defined by (self) objectification and her value for-another. Are we (as women) able to have sex more freely than we used to? Yes. Does this mean society has achieved “sexual liberation”? Nope. Sexual “liberation” through a culture obsessed with visual sexuality (or being visually sexual) has been bought with socio-cultural (although not legal) sexual regulation. That’s all I’m going to say on this now…but more to come on this topic.
further reading: History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault, Female Chauvenist Pigs by Ariel Levy. (both in my Amazon picks)
04.17.08
Props where props are due: Entertainment Weekly
AfterEllen comments on Entertainment Weekly’s “50 Actors We’d Watch in Anything” list. The downside? Only 18 out of 50 are women. The upside? The women chosen are actually good, respectable actresses, their presence on the list seems to actually be about their acting! As opposed to the lists that, ya know, end up being more about popularity and sex appeal, and rarely correspond to actress’ talent. Bravo!
Some of the women named include Rosario Dawson (! a woman of color!), Allison Janney (I’m a huge West Wing fan), Kate Winslett, Catherine Keener, Julia Stiles, to name a few. And no, there’s no hottie-of-the-moment-that-gets-ignored-once she-gets-prego-and/or-older-than-24. For once.
04.15.08
Badu’s Advice for Female Music Artist-Hopefuls is Great Social Commentary
Terrific tongue-in-cheek ‘advice’ from a wonderful, respectable, talented, independent, kick-ass female music artist. Her words speak loads. via 5 Resolutions
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