A mayor from a small town in Oregon has been found to have “sexually suggestive” photographs on her MySpace page. That is, photographs of her in black lingerie, posing on a fire truck. Photographs that are obviously tame enough that MySpace allows them.
Whether or not her profile has always been sent to private, it is now. But Mayor Kontur-Gronquist has refused to either take down the photos or resign:
Mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist, whose MySpace photos of her posing in black lingerie on a fire engine put this Columbia River town of 600 into something of a pother, told ABC’s 20/20 Friday night that she’s not stepping down.
”They’re going to have to drag me out of here,” she said.
The pictures were taken before she thought of running for mayor, said Kontur-Gronquist, 42, the first woman to hold the unpaid position. She said she had permission from the fire chief to use the engine and had intended to use the photos in a contest about fitness in women.
A relative set up the MySpace page, hoping it would jump-start her social life, said Kontur-Gronquist, a single parent. Family members uploaded the photos and she said she saw no reason to take them down once elected.
”I had no clue that it would cause such a negative reaction,” she said. ”I called my council members and apologized. Everyone is entitled to their own private life.”
At a council meeting this month some people asked for her to resign.
”People aren’t laughing with us, they’re laughing at us,” said school board member Grant Wilkins.
What, exactly, are they laughing at, Wilkins? That your town has a Mayor who sees nothing wrong with her body, has the gall to demand the right to her own private life and doesn’t do everything you say?
Whether or not its a good idea to post these types of photographs online is a question up for debate among feminists. Whether or not it’s a good idea for the first female mayor of a town to be portrayed in this way is another one. But I hope all of us can agree that posing for racy photographs of any description is not something that should be allowed to ruin a woman’s career. And as far as racy photographs go, the one that is widely available online is extremely mild (no, I’m not going to link to it). Let’s just say that if if it was me in the photograph, I wouldn’t exactly eagerly show them to my parents but also wouldn’t do much more than blush and shrug if they accidentally found them.
A woman should be allowed to wear a bra in a photograph and not be shamed for it. She should be allowed to show her body and be proud of it without risking the loss of her job — an unpaid job, at that! Though women’s bodies are constantly objectified in our society, they still do belong to us. And we shouldn’t consider a woman’s cleavage and stomach to be obscene.
This is slut-shaming, plain and simple — attacking and humiliating any woman who is found to be lacking in some aspect of culturally dictated sexual purity. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s the first female mayor of this town who is being burned at the stake. I also find it hard to believe that a man standing next to a fire truck with his shirt off would attract the same attention and outrage. If anything, we’d poke fun at it. Because men’s bare chests aren’t exactly considered appropriate for the workplace, but they are seen as normal and acceptable in a slew of other contexts. A woman’s bare stomach and a lacy bra? Indecent. How could she ever efficiently run a town now that we know she owns or once owned black underwear?
It needs to stop. This desperate game of trying to sexually shame successful women needs to stop. The need for these women to apologize for doing nothing wrong just to be accepted back into society needs to stop. The idea that somehow the sight of breasts harms us and we have the right to issue or refuse forgiveness for it needs to stop.
In the grand scheme of things, this is indeed very far down on the list of feminist issues, and I fully acknowledge that. But it’s a part of a bigger picture that includes sabotage of female success, undermining of any and all female authority, and shaming of female bodies and female sexuality. For those of us who are privileged enough to work in the private sector, this is an issue we have to face down. Whether or not we can defend the photographs on feminist grounds (an argument, for the record, that I have no interest in having), we do have to fight on feminist grounds for an end to this crap of judging women based on their sexuality. And “slut-shaming” affects more than just white professional women; I’d argue that women of color, particularly black women, experience this a lot more often and in far more consequential ways.
So I thank you, Mayor Kontur-Gronquist, for standing your ground and refusing to allow them to shame you over something for which you have no reason to be ashamed. The mayor is accepting words of encouragement through MySpace messages and letters. If you’d like to add your voice to the chorus, you can do so here.
{ 20 comments }
While I agree with your premise–that every woman should be able to bear what they want and be proud–there’s a line someone should adhere to. If you’re in a public office, male or female, paid or unpaid, you should probably at least expect this sort of reaction.
This scrutiny is about as fair as college admittance officers checking your myspace/facebook page–it’s really up to the individual to make a decision from there. Your stuff WILL BE checked and you WILL BE judged–like it or not–until regulation starts to be imposed.
I hate this slut-shaming agenda. Why do people want their elected officials to be boring one-dimensional cardboard cutouts?! We all wear many different hats. Hooray for multi-faceted people!
Uh huh, Shauna. But what probably will happen is necessarily what should happen, which was my point here. In fact, I’d say that a very large chunk of my posts are about bad things that happen and will happen again even though they shouldn’t — regarding issues a lot more severe than this. I think that the first step is getting people to realize that these things shouldn’t happen and stop automatically accepting that they just will.
while we might not like it, we do judge people all kind of things that do not necessarily have anything to do with their qualifications. if i wear a piercing it has an effect on how i am regarded. cloths have similar effects. a man in a suit gives a different impression than someone in blue-jeans.
like it or not, we all are like that and always will be. complaining is not going to change that.
so for a person in exposed positions like public offices they have to come to terms with it. you can come to the office in a thongs only if you like. but dont expect no one to judge you!
so what you want and accept the consequences it has on how you are perceived by people. it has nothing to do with the fact that this mayor is female, as you are trying to spin it.
if a male mayor had posted sexy pics of him on the internet, he would have been a target for mockery just as much if not more…
Snusket: I disagree that a man would be regarded the same way for posing shirtless. And yes, people will judge one another, just as the blogger here is judging the judge-ers. That doesn’t make her point about the double standard any less valid nor does it mean that we can’t disagree over what is shame-worthy. The question remains whether or not a person’s competence to govern should be based on the clothing they choose to wear in photos.
Cara: I understand your not wanting to link the photos but it would be nice if you had a link to her work page or her myspace so those of us in agreement with you could drop her a line of support.
Yeah, snusket, I would totally agree with you if the Mayor had actually showed up to work wearing nothing but a thong. Clearly, that would be inappropriate. But she didn’t do that. She isn’t even wearing a thong in the fucking picture.
Daretoeatapeach, I did link to her MySpace page; it’s the last link/last works of the post.
May I suggest that we focus on those individuals and groups committing the offense. The attempt by religious zealots to foist creationism on students of biology was effectively opposed by revealing the true nature of those efforts. What is the motivation of Grant Wilkins and others on the council? If he is simply embarrassed by the photos, he’s a provincial and probably not representative of many of his constituents; If he or others have a religious objection, that has no place in our secular government. Certain religious affiliations are strong predictors of sexist beliefs; A useful first step is to identify the religious affiliation – if any – of these bad actors.
I always wondered how those people who considered nudity to be obscene and shameful, considered photographs of starving kids in Africa and dead Iraqi children to be liberal-leftist propaganda…
I am an anarchist friend from Jerusalem / Palestine. & I love this blog!
“like it or not, we all are like that and always will be. complaining is not going to change that.”
I do not understand this attitude. What good will *ever* come from this “shut up and put up” bullshit?
Being lazy, cowardly and complacent is what won’t change anything.
Right on, good for her.
I think that “attitudes will never change” argument is based in a certain kind of cultural/historical laziness. Oh, my how times have changed. Several years ago it was a great shame to be a single-mother, Murphy Brown helped us out with that (and before that, One Day at a Time). Simply talking about menstruation, rape, and childhood sexual abuse were all once deep taboos.
In France, a single-mother almost became President last year–she’s still “with” the father of her children, they just never bothered to get married. Could that happen in the States? Well, maybe not today, but how different were we in the 1950′s? Times do change–they can also change for the worse, like in Iran where many women were highly accomplished professionals, but their status took a serious downturn in the Islamic Revolution. Margret Atwood isn’t that fair off in pinpointing the US as a viable candidate for just such a similar society with the possibility of negative change for women (see Handmaid’s Tale).
So, any argument that is based on “attitudes/people” don’t change is highly suspicious to me. Its willfully ignorant.
Peace
it’s a part of a bigger picture that includes sabotage of female success, undermining of any and all female authority, and shaming of female bodies and female sexuality.
This is exactly it. The fact that people can look at this situation and think “well, she shouldn’t have posed for those pictures in the first place” instead of “they want to fire her for what?” sounds an awful lot like “well, if she didn’t want to get raped she shouldn’t have worn that short skirt” to me.
Furthermore, the implication that if you work in the public sector you’re not allowed to have a private life rankles me (though of course, thinking back to Larry Craig, I do think that if your work in the public sector involves shaming others’ sexualities, you’d better either make sure your house is clean or be extremely discreet about the ways in which it’s not). What’s the logic behind the thought that these pictures make her unfit to do her job? Is it the idea that the pictures are bringing negative attention to the town? Because here’s the thing: the pictures aren’t bringing negative attention to the town. If it were just the pictures, I doubt any of us would have heard this story. What made it worthy of national attention is the fact that certain members of the council want her to resign.
Betty Boondoggle: I do not understand this attitude. What good will *ever* come from this “shut up and put up” bullshit?
Being lazy, cowardly and complacent is what won’t change anything.
Exactly.
Good on her. It’s sad that there are very good reasons for women to think twice about posing in even relatively harmless pictures (being very unfairly judged, which is funny considering hoe we get constantly told we are sex objects that should be stripping off for mens’ pleasure anyway), but that is not to say that women should be punished or shamed for it. They should not. Men in their position would not be treated as harshly, or told that their half-naked bodies are shameful.
And exactly… every time people tell em to get over it, I remind them that things DO change. All the damn time. And if it wasn’t for people sticking up for things, women wouldn’t have the vote, or the right to education to begin with. So it’s stupid to expect people to put up with it, or it’ll never get any better!
What’s this “if a man did it it’d be no problem…” stuff? If John McCain or Barack Obama posed in Speedos or shirtless you really don’t think it would impact our society’s perspective on them? Do you think we’d vote in a president like that? Do you think it’d be just peachy if Hillary Clinton posed “artistically” for playboy? Man or woman,when you take a PUBLIC office that you are not MANDATED to hold on to you are taking it upon yourself to represent your public as THEY see fit, not you.
If an elected leader can suddenly act the way they see fit, regardless of those who elected them, then we’d have a nation overflowing with governors and mayors who run the same vein as our current president. A PUBLIC OFFICIAL IS NOT REQUIRED TO SERVE THEIR POST, BUT THEY ARE REQUIRED TO OPERATE IN THE INTEREST OF THEIR CONSTITUENTS, NOT THEMSELVES.
The problem is the residents found out about this after voting her in (if she was voted in). I would have no problem voting for her after seeing these MySpace pages because I find the whole thing trivial, but many might not, and they feel cheated. They might feel the same way some people felt about Clinton when Lewinsky “tripped” into his lap. If you’d known he was a womanizing adulterer before elections, you might not have elected him.
Public officials outed as gay have been basically forced to resign, not because their discretion was illegal, but because it’s very easy to make voters feel betrayed. Life isn’t as simple as “because she’s a woman”. That is certainly one aspect, but it’s merely a brick in the wall. There are a multitude of perspectives that people concerned with a certain sect of activism tend to overlook, because they are so invested in their own interests.
We may all be arguing about the same thing, but we’re all usually thinking different things. Take the time to try and absorb multiple viewpoints and you might find several thousand things in this world a lot less outrageous.
Actually, I have seen Barack Obama in a bathing suit. I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen John McCain in one, too. That you seem completely unaware that these photographs exist only serves to prove my point.
As for making voters feel “betrayed.” No, gay people aren’t kicked out of office because they “betrayed” their constituents. They’re kicked out of office because most of the people in this country are still bigots.
As for Clinton, yeah, he totally betrayed constituents by getting a blow job. No, he betrayed his wife and it was a shitty thing to do. But you know what’s much, much more shitty and an actual betrayal of American trust? Illegal wire taps, unconstitutional secret prisons, deliberately breaking the law and saying it’s okay because you’re the President and falsifying information to drag a nation into a pointless and very deadly war. But hey, look who we impeached. Look at whose “indiscretions” got talked about on the news every night. THAT shows American priorities, and the fact that you think this is okay is both hilarious and depressing.
But yeah, from now on I’ll totally try to absorb the viewpoints of misogynists, racists and homophobes. I imagine that you’re right, that I’d be angry a lot less. But since I know better, I’d also be a pretty damn shitty person, not to mention an ignorant one who just blindly accepts everything that Fox spoon feeds to me.
My agreement, you has it.
I’ve ALWAYS been miffed at how politicians private lives (often things COMPLETELY unrelated to their office – like this) can damage or ruin their career.
Its also much worse for female politicians, because there are plenty of people who keep their eye out for ANY little ‘misdeed’ solely to try to shame them from office.
*sigh*
I really hate people sometimes.
Now, Detroit is trying to force out its mayor over his private text messages and nothing else. Pretty damn sad.
I dont know what everybody is in such a tiff about, We d=idnt try to impeach Jimmy Carter for lusting after Playboy Playmates did we? I just dont understand why people are such a cad for prying into other =peoples private life, as long as is does not affect their performance in whatever they are doing, then leave them be, we are just Humans.
Uh, what. She isn’t even posing sexually in that photo. She doesn’t even have a sexual facial expression going on (sultry look/bedroom eyes/etc).
Crazy USAians… [/irony]
I think it’s great that she’s standing up to her critics. Also, I don’t remember anyone saying anything this negative about the pictures of Sarah Palin in a bikini wielding a rifle.
What really bothers me about this is that ubiquitous photos of Barack Obama at the beach seem to be totally okay with everyone, and we can compare him shirtless to past presidents without their shirts, but this is somehow different and wrong and disgusting. Not to mention Sarah Palin…
Although I read somewhere that many people wanting her out of office had some other beef.
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