Are You Ready for some Sexism and Abortion Controversy?

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, which means chicken wings, beer, maybe some football, but most importantly - ads. It is the most-watched television event of the year, which makes it prime-time for advertisers to get their message out to the American people. The content of these ads also say much about where our country is at the time. Last year, there were more than a few references to the country's economic woes, and even one awkward reference to the stimulus package (let's not forget that even Cash 4 Gold got a spot). And, what a difference a year makes - at least for Tiger Woods and Jay Leno.

By now it is no secret that Focus on the Family is airing a pro-life spot that CBS collaborated on with them for months. Even though CBS has a staunch no-advocacy policy for ads during the Super Bowl. Even though they have rejected an ad from MoveOn.org in the past for being critical of Bush, rejected an ad this year for a gay dating website yet have aired homophobic ads in the past, and of course, green light ads that are inherently sexist and reiterate tired stereotypes of masculinity. I won't say any more, as the issue has been discussed much at length elsewhere, but I do want to point you to the actions of the Women's Media Center in response, this pro-choice defense from Sean James and Al Joyner, and this New York Times article about Saints linebacker Scott Fujita's pro-choice and pro-gay rights stance. If the CBS/FotF controversy is any indication of where our country stands, we are greatly divided and in danger of regressing.

MY action today will be to point out every single sexist and otherwise problematic ad that airs during the game. You can follow me live here on my Twitter page.

And since Hulu put up all of the commercials from last year's game, I'll warm up by pointing out the equality flaws in them.

In the category of "Me man. Me tough. Me drink beer":
Pepsi's "I'm Good" spots, SoBe's stereotypical use of football players doing ballet (real men don't participate in WOMANLY activities!), and the most ridiculously macho ad for a truck I've ever seen (involves the Mojave desert, some strange metal contraption, carrying heavy objects and FIRE).

In the dichotomy of "women are either super hot sex objects or annoying nags":
Doritos' power to strip women of their clothes, GoDaddy.com's questioning of whether women have "enhanced" and voyeuristic viewing of Danica Patrick in the shower, and don't forget poor Mrs. Potato Head (which I blogged about last year), and those harassing flowers.


But there was actually some good in last year's ads. Pepsi sent out a call for community activists to change the world (however, this year they won't run a Super Bowl spot, and instead are lending the campaign purely to social media). Kelloggs similarly asked viewers to decide where money should go for community do-good-ing. And even GE played into renewable energy.


You know, there was a point in my life where I wanted to get into advertising, and I even held a job that was somewhat close. Advertising comes with great power, and also great responsibility to use that power to convey messages that are truthful, informative, fair, and helpful to the American people. So often the people in charge forget that. This Super Bowl, it is your duty to remember.

3 Questions for Christine Arylo

Christine Arylo is the founder of Madly in Love With Me, a movement to raise the awareness of self-love among women and girls around the world and to provide a pathway that gives those women and girls the guidance, support, wisdom and inspiration they need to freely and fully live and love the women they are, free of self-criticism, self-hatred, and self-abuse. I asked Christine 3 questions from The Undomestic 10 interview series that best reiterated the idea of self-love. For more on the movement, become a fan on Facebook and follow Christine on Twitter.

1.) Who is one female (other than your mother) you admire, and why?

Alice Walker. I had the great blessing of being at a reading Alice did in the fall of this year, and then getting about a minute to hold her hand, look into her eyes and thank her for her wisdom, grace and beauty. She is a woman who stands for what she believes. Is unafraid to say it. Is brilliant in her writing. Is deep within her soul. And light within her heart. All qualities I admire and aspire to always maintain myself.

2.) How do media generally portray women? What is a good example of this?

I will get asked a lot in interviews something like, "C’mon Christine, are you trying to tell me that after all the equal rights movements and self-esteem stuff, that women are still chasing after fairy tales, still feel bad about themselves, and still struggle with feeling like they need another person to complete them?” Unfortunately my answer is yes, and here are two examples…

1. Turn on the Bachelor and watch these women fight over a man, and claw their way through to get to some ultimate goal of marriage, as if marriage means you win. Every old fairy tale is alive and well in this show and people love it!

And 2. Shock jock radio. What gets said on those shows – and I’ve had the misfortune of being accidentally booked twice on them – is completely degrading to women, yet both women and men listen to them and eat it up. I wonder if these people would still listen if it was their daughter being abused on the air? It would be easy to blame “The Media” as if they are some evil entity but the fact is that media is only a reflection of our own level of consciousness. They publish what we consume. So I wonder with 4 of 5 girls dieting by the time they are in 4th grade, and 1 in 3 girls ending up in abusive relationships by the time they are 20… what are we condoning simply by what we choose to tune into?

3. What is one piece of advice you’d like to give to young girls today?

Never settle for less than your heart and soul desire, ever. That is the #1 vow every woman and girl must make with herself. The caveat is that because so many girls today have been told they can do anything, they are extremely hard on themselves and they set unrealistic expectations to be able to do and be everything, which is a set up for extreme self-abuse. Which is why self-esteem is important… but that only gives you the confidence to know you can do anything. You also need deep self-love, which means honoring, trusting and respecting yourself always… including having kindness and compassion for yourself and expecting the same from every other person in your life.

Guest Post: Sexism, Censorship and the Highly Anticipated "Porn" Tab in HuffPo's NavBar

The following post comes from Diego Báez, who will edit Essays for the forthcoming Ironbound Review, and reads submissions for StoryQuarterly. His work has appeared online at The Splinter Generation and Granta. He lives and writes in Newark, NJ.


26 January 2010, 2:06 PM: Greg Oden NAKED PICTURES! Nude PENIS PHOTOS Surface

Poor Greg Oden. Until a few days ago, this otherwise unknown, oddly troglodytic Lebron James lookalike was just another 22-year-old first round draft pick and fledgling NBA Center. When nude self-portraits (taken with what looks like a cell phone) surfaced, ever on-the-ball and watchful-for-What’s-Happening Huffington Post reporters didn’t hesitate to publicize something really quite personal (and ostensibly of little value to anyone else) to someone probably still grappling with what it means to inhabit a body like his (i.e., imagine being 22 and 7’ tall and dealing with the demands of the NBA on top of everything else young twentysomethings are expected to figure out for themselves).

And yet, HuffPo cropped the photos to exclude the PENIS advertised in the headline. Why? There’s nothing aggressively sexual in a depiction of a flaccid penis; it’s just another organ of the male body, no more threatening or symbolic or repulsive than nipples (more on that). And size doesn’t matter, except to make jokes and stereotype and have an all-around good time perpetuating careless norms. But so, why censor?


26 January 2010, 6:00 PM: Pirelli 2010 Calendar PHOTOS: Nude Banana-Eating, Sloth-Holding and MUCH More (NSFW PICTRES, POLL)

Apparently, whoever’s in charge of these sorts of things over at HuffPo has no reservations against posting in Slideshow form and making a killing off advertising around and just generally promoting displays of full-frontal female nudity. The calendar in question, presented by Pirelli & C. SpA as a gift to select clientele and celebrities, features mostly nude women (i.e., women, most of whom are nude) in strange poses with odd objects, e.g., holding a garden hose and tonguing the spray, tonguing roosters (get it?), holding three-toed sloths, etc.

But there’s nothing wrong with nudity (the way parents might redirect children’s eyes when nude cyclists ride by, or the controversy caused by full-body imaging at airport security), and, admittedly, most of the women are “only” (still more) topless, but a few (and among the top rated) are completely undressed. Again, nothing wrong with a woman’s body, except when a gallery of these bodies exhibit a conspicuous resemblance with regards to body type (your typical “banana” or ectomorph). This, the unfortunate and threatening and much-maligned norm.

That said, none of the P&C calendar shots are exactly the graphic, full-on frontal you’ll find in men’s magazines, but some are at least 3/4 full (enough to show what’s below the waistline, anyway), and if breasts aren’t primary reproductive organs per se, Lily Cole's posing certainly suggests her secondary sex is pretty well worth noticing. All of which is to say, these images are very much overtly sexual. What’s at stake then is not just the aggressively sexualized imagery and the Feminine Ideal, but the question and inequality of censorship with regards to representations of male and female forms. (I.e., why not censor images of nude women as well?)

Perhaps the Pirelli 2010 calendar photos exhibit some artistic value (in contrast to G. Oden’s portraiture, anyway). They certainly appear professional, and if they resemble an American Apparel advert, it’s because the series was shot by the same photog of indiscriminate objectification (but terribly talented) Terry Richardson. For the uninitiated, T. Richardson pretty well sums up his philosophy on photography in an interview with comic book cum Queer Art slash porno publisher Taschen:

“People in fashion were saying, 'If I see one more picture of a girl with her legs spread... He's a misogynist, he's a porn guy.' So hey, I'll spread my legs too. I'll be the object.”

Think what you will of his Artistic Statement, TR’s taken quite seriously in the world of high fashion and certain art circles, such that the calendar pictures as-seen-on HuffPo demand attention as art objects, which pictures are, admittedly, tame by TR’s standards (whose portfolio includes numerous self-portraits and shots of himself in various states of undress; getting head and post-ejaculatory and usually conspicuously erect), and mildly interesting in the Artist-as-Subject and Subject-as-Object, ergo Artist-as-Object and One with Art kind of way that Transcendental aesthetics or Neoplatonic Philosophy really rivets the imagination.

Even so, the photos are embedded right in there with Flash ads for Time Warner Cable and the opportunity to Digg or Vote Now or Follow whomever Tweets links via Bing to "The Making of" video on YouTube amid headlines for State of the Union Drinking Game and Best Celebrity Photobombs. And of course, the ever-insightful responses you’d expect from a Comments section. All of which distorts whatever it is we’re looking at and detracts from any possible “artistic” appreciation.

So maybe photos of nude women doing weird things on a company calendar isn’t art after all. And maybe there really is something wrong with Pirelli (an Italian tyre company, btw)’s sponsoring an annual nude calendar, or maybe there’s something wrong with whoever did the recruiting’s failing to recruit women whose beauty doesn’t adhere to the same tired standard. Maybe there’s something wrong with Terry Richardson’s methodology. My question is less about exploitation per se, than the publicly accessible site of said exploits.

The Huffington Post no longer purports to even resemble a viable News source. What began as an interesting foray into unexplored territory somewhere between the Big 5 Nightly and everyone-qua-eyewitness has devolved into a spiraling pit of irreverence and irrelevance, tending too often toward the latter. And if there’s something wrong with any of the above, what right does a “News”/Entertainment/Time-wasting portal have to post material that raises (or should raise) important questions about media and body image, the Male Gaze and representation generally, without ever seeking to resolve them? The product HuffPo offers is all of this together: images, issues, and the conspicuous lack of dialogue about either of the aforementioned. Is there something wrong with a company turning a profit off said product?

Or is it part of some other kind of concern? It may just be emblematic of this weird New Nudity, enabled by technology (teenagers charged with child porn for texting pictures of themselves) and championed by high fashion (Gucci, YSL [which Gucci campaign was shot for Tom Ford by none other than TR]). But technology (and fashion) can only change what it reflects, i.e., we’ve always been voyeurs-in-reverse, the desire to see only overpowered by the intractable desire to be seen. And the allure of the gaze, on whomever’s behalf, is motivated by the market, by demand for online Infotainment, click-throughs and revenue. Funny thing about that gaze, it works both ways, and always keeps us looking.

Feminism 3.0

My dad forwarded me this email full of blatant sexist stereotypes. I'm reposting without comment, because it just speaks for itself.

A woman writes to the IT Technical support Guy...

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and I noticed a distinct slowdown in the overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NEWS 5.0, MONEY 3.0 and Golf 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and House cleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail. What can I do?


DEAR Madam,

First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Silence 2.5 or Beer 6.1. Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.) In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend: Cooking 3.0 and Hot Looks 7.7.

Good Luck Madam! IT SUPPORT DESK


UGH.

Upcoming Goddess Events

The Undomestic Goddess is pairing up with book publishing blogger Moonrat for an online book club discussion March 1. We'll be reading Sons and other Flammable Objects, so get your copy and join in the discussion! Today Moonrat's February book club e-meets to discuss Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits - another excellent book laden with feminist issues - so stop on over and take a peek at what's being said.

Also on the books vibe, I'll be part of a reading with pal Marie Mockett, who has appeared on this blog and even answered the Undomestic 10. She'll be reading from her novel, Picking Bones from Ash, and I'll be asking her some tough, on-the-spot questions about feminism, publishing, Japan, and life's various things. It's happening at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn on Monday, February 15 at 7:30 pm. That also happens to be President's Day, so no excuses about working late. :-P

I'll be heading down to D.C. in March for the 2010 National Young Feminist Leadership Conference, and going to my very first BlogHer conference this August in New York. I hope you'll join me for both, and expect dispatches from the road!

And finally, I'm taking over the National Organization for Women New York State Chapter's Young Feminist Task Force Twitter - follow us @NOWYoungFems. And if you haven't joined NOW yet, what are you waiting for? I just got word that this year's national NOW conference will be held 4th of July weekend in Boston, so save the date!


Phew! Hope to see you around - either online or in the flesh!

Why I am Pro-Choice (Blog for Choice Day 2010)

Because I trust women to make their own decisions.



Because women's bodies are not government property.


Because abortion is health care.


Because 1/3 of women under the age of 40 will have an abortion.


Because I value the life of the mother.


Because every child should be a wanted child.


Because of parental notification laws.



Because of waiting periods.



Because of clinic violence.



Because of anti-abortion clinics posing as pregnancy crisis centers.



Because of federally funded abstinence-only education.



Because of sexual misinformation.



Because pharmacists can refuse women birth control.



Because of rape and incest.



Because rape trials often blame the victim.



Because hospitals can refuse rape victims Plan B.



Because of the rape kit backlog.


Because of forced sterilization.


Because of fetal personhood laws.


Because there is no federally funded maternity or paternity leave.



Because of the gender wage gap.



Because of the stigma of welfare.



Because there is no federally subsidized child care.



Because I know women who have had an abortion.



Because I am a woman, too.

Today is the 37th Anniversary of Roe v Wade. Why are you pro-choice?

Help protect reproductive justice. Petition to keep anti-choice language out of the final health care bill.


Oh, and it's about time we repeal the damn Hyde Amendment, don't you think?

Guest Post: Street Harassment - Athenian Edition

The following guest post comes from Rebecca Elia, a holistic gynecologist who spends as much time as possible in Greece. She’s taken the year off from patient care to work on her forthcoming book Creating Feminine Health, Finding Balance in a Masculine World. You can find her at her blogs www.rebeccaeliablog.blogspot.com (on feminine health healing and Greece) and www.itsallgreecetome.com (on Greece) and on Twitter @rebeccaelia. You can also sign up for her free Creating Feminine Health Newsletter here.

I’ve hesitated to write about this, not only because it is disgusting, but because it doesn’t paint one particular Greek woman in the gentlest of lights. People often ask me how I can stand being around macho chauvinistic Greek men (no, not all Greek men are like this!), and I have many answers, the most recent of which appeared on my blog post Single Women Travelers and Greek Gods. Mostly, I find them entertaining, and I enjoy being a woman too much not to put up with them. But when I was living in Athens almost fifteen years ago, I had a series of mini-revelations about what made the Greek men so confident and strong, both traits sorely lacking in many American men.

One of these mini-revelations was about Greek mothers. I was shocked to discover that perhaps the Greek men are the way they are because their women prefer them this way. Greek mothers have a lot of power within the family, and, surely, if they wanted their boys to behave differently, they have the power to change the way in which they are raising them. I don’t mean to say that women have all the power, but they certainly have a lot more than I had realized.

This mini-revelation came about through a series of uncomfortable experiences, the worst of which follows: I was walking to the center at which I was taking Greek lessons. It was only a few blocks from my studio apartment, which was located in a building across from an elementary school. I was on a side-street, alone, about two blocks from my destination when I had a strange feeling that someone was following me. I turned to find a pervert jacking off. He was so close to me that he soiled the back of my shirt. Of course I was angry and disgusted, and yelled at him as he ran off. He was obviously sick, but I was concerned, because he was walking near the elementary school.

When I reached the center, I reported the event to the people who worked there. I told them that I was concerned about his hanging out at the school and wanted a police report filed for this reason. They (all women) were not confident that the police would respond. As I was speaking passionately about my concerns, an older Greek woman, who happened to be a teacher, entered the office. She noticed that we were all speaking excitedly and asked in Greek, “What happened?” One of the women in the office filled her in. I’ll never forget her response. She looked at me in disbelief and said, “What do you expect? You’re a beautiful woman!” and left the office without further hesitation.

I was appalled. If an older woman had this reaction to a sick pervert who was most likely hanging out around elementary school children, what would be her stance on less obvious forms of perversion or bullying, or frankly abusive behavior, for that matter? That’s when I started to realize that Greek mothers hold a lot of power in shaping their boys as well as their girls. I had come to expect such a response from the Greek police, but for an older Greek woman to so easily dismiss the actions of a pervert was highly disturbing.

This is why it did my heart good to read Erin’s handling of her encounter with a Washington DC pervert. At least Americans have a chance of actually reaching the police and getting a response when we dial 911. This experience in Athens made me reflect on how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go, both in the U.S. and in our world. It also brought to the forefront how we, as women, respond. Our inaction is as dangerous as our acceptance of the status quo. What are we teaching our sons and daughters?