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"In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." --Gloria Steinem
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May
12
Need a laugh?
Filed Under feminism, fun, marketing, media, pop culture, products, random, sexism, stereotypes, videos | 5 Comments
Writing this blog everyday, I sure as hell do! And this cracked me up.
If like me, you’re fed up with stupid sexist commercials, check out a few getting some feminist skewering:
I want to see more of Sarah Haskins. And I also might have to start watching InfoMania. It kind of looks like VH1’s Best Week Ever . . . but with jokes that are funny.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Feb
14
Shampoo, Toothpaste and Vibrators: Perfect Valentine’s Day Supplies
Filed Under fun, marketing, products, sex and sexuality | 3 Comments
In honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s this article from Newsweek about how drugstores are now starting to sell “sexual aids” right out there in the open with the non-sinful products:
Popularity: 17% [?]
Feb
4
Period Wars, Round 274
Filed Under feminism, marketing, reproductive justice, women’s health | 16 Comments
I will admit upfront that I am in a foul mood today. But I’m not sure that this is a huge factor in how much this article about menstrual suppression has pissed me off.
The article is, of course — and inexplicably since the news is rather outdated and seems to have no recent developments — about the birth control pill Lybrel. Lybrel is the first birth control pill on the market specifically designed to suppress periods entirely (for as long as the pill is taken). It follows on the heels of Seasonale, which causes periods only once every three months, and other types of birth control like the NuvaRing, which allow the same benefits if so desired (for some reason the article doesn’t see fit to discuss anything other than pills). And here, we enter the ludicrous and false debate over whether women think that their periods are Teh Awesome or evil inconveniences that must die, die I say! Are periods What Make Us Women(tm) or What Holds Women Back(tm)? Oh, the quandary.
And if that isn’t eye-roll inducing enough, the two non-existent sides in this false debate are divided among flighty pharmaceutical company loving women and feminists.
To view the Lybrel Web site, you might think that women everywhere have been waiting desperately for the chance to postpone their periods. Clearly, Wyeth, the drug giant behind Lybrel, is banking on it. But it turns out that not all women want to cure the curse. Wyeth’s own research says so. Still, the ease with which women can now postpone their periods has sparked a new debate on menstruation. Teenage girls are wondering whether avoiding messy periods is as simple as taking a pill. Feminists see Big Pharma treating something natural and essentially feminine as an illness. Lybrel is the first drug to allow women to stop their period for good, and some scientists say its long-term effects are unknown.
Ever since Lybrel was released, new questions about menstruation have been turning up in newspaper Op-Eds and glossy women’s magazines and on TV news. Karen Houppert, author of “The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo: Menstruation,” says it’s no coincidence that public debate over periods has surfaced at this particular cultural moment. “This conversation about periods gets recycled in times where there’s high anxiety about women’s role in society,” she says. Today, from the “mommy wars” to the possibility of a high-powered woman in the White House, there is plenty of anxiety over women’s changing roles. So it’s no wonder that Lybrel has cracked open the debate and has women asking: Is this the end of menstruation?
First of all, I sincerely hope that no self-respecting feminist would use the term “feminine” to describe a natural bodily function unique to females.
And now a question: who the hell is asking “is this the end of menstruation?” Are you? Have you heard anyone ask that question until this very moment? Do you think that it’s a reasonable question now that you’ve heard it? Raise your hand if you do. Because by the time we get to the end of the article, we’ll see that even Lybrel’s strongest critics don’t think that it is.
Popularity: 21% [?]
Jan
7
This is what I hate about politics
Filed Under 2008 election, abortion, disability, marketing, misogyny, patriarchy, politics, reproductive justice, sexism, videos, women’s health | 11 Comments
The Clinton campaign has put out a last-minute attack mailing against Obama in New Hampshire, and the content really pisses me off:
Barack Obama’s campaign fought back Sunday against rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in an under-the-radar dispute over who would best protect abortion rights.
Obama’s campaign made automated phone calls to New Hampshire voters accusing Clinton of “last-minute smears.”
The recorded message came in response to a Clinton mailing that said Obama failed to stand up for the right to choose abortion. The mailing said that while serving in the state Senate in Illinois, Obama voted “present” seven times on abortion legislation instead of taking a yes or no position.
In the Obama call, Wendy Frosh, of Planned Parenthood in Northern New England, said Obama “has a 100 percent pro-choice record and has always been a champion for women’s rights.”
Yes, this does look very bad on paper. But here are the facts: Obama’s “present” votes were Planned Parenthoods’ idea.
Pam Sutherland, president of Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, said Mr. Obama was one of the senators with a strong stand for abortion rights whom the organization approached about using the strategy. Ms. Sutherland said the Republicans were trying to force Democrats from conservative districts to register politically controversial no votes.
Ms. Sutherland said Mr. Obama had initially resisted the strategy because he wanted to vote against the anti-abortion measures.
“He said, ‘I’m opposed to this,’” she recalled.
But the organization argued that a present vote would be difficult for Republicans to use in campaign literature against Democrats from moderate and conservative districts who favored abortion rights.
Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general who was in the Illinois Senate with Mr. Obama from 1998 through 2002, said she and Mr. Obama voted present on the anti-abortion bills.
“It’s just plain wrong to imply that voting present reflected a lack of leadership,” Ms. Madigan said. “In fact, it was the exact opposite.”
I recommend reading the full article, because it explains some of the weirdness of the “present” vote culture in Illinois. I find it to be odd, too, but Obama didn’t make the rules. As for the rest of his “present” votes, I think that he has given adequate explanations for most of them. Others, not so much. But then again, Clinton doesn’t exactly have a perfect voting record, either. What pisses me off is that Clinton and her campaign are smart enough to know better. They know that the ads are huge manipulations of the truth and that Obama is actually an incredibly strong pro-choice candidate. In fact, it’s probably my favorite thing about the guy. So I call bullshit very loudly and indignantly.
The upside, I realized, after the burst of anger subsided, is that there really must be parts of this country where abortion rights are a winning issue. Otherwise, the mailing never would have seen the light of day.
I also can’t bring myself to pick on Clinton too greatly. Earlier today, during a Q&A session, she teared up while answering a question about “how she does it.” The video is after the jump.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Dec
28
Not An Invitation
Filed Under feminism, marketing, media, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, sex work, slut-shaming, stereotypes, violence against women and girls | 8 Comments
Today, reader Kate sent me a link to this anti-rape campaign, and I was extremely impressed with it. Unfortunately, a bit of further research showed that the campaign isn’t recent; other blog posts I found indicate that it’s from 2001 or earlier. So you may have seen it before. But I hadn’t, and I liked it enough that I thought it was worth posting about, anyway.The campaign is called, as each poster indicates, This is Not an Invitation to Rape Me. It was created by an organization called Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women, which has since changed its name to Peace Over Violence. The campaign consists of black and white images of women in positions that our society believes either make women prone to rape or makes rape okay, with the words “this is not an invitation to rape me” placed over top in red.
I think that all of the posters covered an impressive and commendable breadth of sexual assault myths. I came up with a few more images that they could have used — a disabled women, a man holding a gun, an undocumented worker — but still think that they did an excellent job with covering a wide range of issues and the most commonly-heard rape apologist arguments. My only genuine criticism is that most of the women (and men) in the photographs appear to be white. The photo above is the only one that seems to clearly feature people of color. I find a couple of others to be indiscernible and the rest to be all very clearly white women. With black and white photos that don’t show faces, more obviously darker-skinned women of color would have been a good thing in terms of making the campaign relevant to POC communities.
My favorite posters are after the jump, but I strongly encourage you to take a minute to go look at them all. Because they’re good.
Popularity: 30% [?]
Dec
27
Texas to tax strip clubs, use funds to help rape victims
Filed Under WOC issues, class and economics, feminism, legislation, marketing, misogyny, objectification, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, sex and sexuality, sex work, sexual exploitation and harassment, violence against women and girls | 7 Comments
Starting in 2008, Texas plans to instate a tax of $5 per strip club patron, with the money going towards help for rape victims. I have to say that I’ve been mulling this over for a few days, trying to figure out my feelings on it. Strip club owners, of course, have sued to block the tax.
Starting on New Year’s Day, Texas plans to tax strip clubs $5 for every customer who shows up to watch performers bump and grind.
Using figures for liquor sales, state officials estimate that the tax will raise about $40 million a year.
The state plans to use most of the proceeds to help rape victims, but club owners are suing to block the tax, saying it infringes on their First Amendment right to freedom of expression.
Despite the noble cause, the owners say, the tax will drive some clubs out of business and unfairly links their industry to sex crimes.
State Representative Ellen Cohen, Democrat of Houston, sponsored the bill, which was approved by the Legislature in May. Ms. Cohen is also the president of a women’s center that could receive financing from the new law.
“This is an industry that largely employs women, and this gives them an opportunity to raise funds for a crime that affects women,” Ms. Cohen said.
She added, “I’ve been told the fees to get into these places can be $10, $15. I don’t think another $5 is going to prevent someone from going.”
I don’t really buy the First Amendment contradiction argument. After all, governments have placed special taxes on products we find to be both unnecessary or unsavory for some time. Cigarettes, alcohol, soda and potato chips when other foods and beverages aren’t taxed, etc. One person in the article argues that if we choose to tax one unpopular industry (strip clubs), there’s nothing stopping extra taxes on other unpopular establishments, like abortion clinics. And though I see the point and certainly wouldn’t put it past anti-choicers to try such a thing, the two are fundamentally different: one is entertainment, the other is a medical service. With all of this being said, though, that doesn’t make it a good idea.
I’ll admit: on the surface, it’s hard to find anything wrong with the proposal. Money going to help rape victims is a great thing. And I can’t say that I’ll shed any tears over men who frequent strip clubs having to hand out a few more dollars to do so. But something bothered me about it from the beginning; it just took me a while to figure out what it was.
While I couldn’t care less about whether or not men will still be able to afford to get their naked dancing women fix, I do care about the women who work in the clubs. I personally think that the claims that this could shut down strip clubs are overblown; I imagine that your average strip club patron probably doesn’t go every day. An extra $5 each week won’t likely deter most of them. But it could very easily mean that they’ll hand out less in tips to the women working inside. And that’s not okay with me. High end clubs will be fine; most patrons will never miss that $5, and the women working there could probably find jobs at other clubs easily if they had to (and which they probably won’t). For women working at the lower-end clubs, it’s a different story. If each man pays an extra $5 to get in and then gives out a few less dollars in tips, the women are definitely going to miss that money. I’m sure that anyone who has worked a crap job for tips to make ends meet knows the terror of losing those tips. So if we’re going to do this, it seems to me that the far wiser and fairer thing would be to instate a tax that is a percentage of the cover charge rather than a flat tax. Bars and clubs need those cover charges, so I don’t see them lowering them significantly to try to beat the tax.
But again. That still doesn’t make it a good idea.
Read more
Popularity: 28% [?]
Dec
17
One Punch? Against Whom?
Filed Under Australia, International, marketing, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, sexism, violence against women and girls | 8 Comments
An article caught my interest today with a headline about how a new Queensland, Australia government ad campaign is targeting male violence and enlisting women to help. So imagine my surprise when I find out that the campaign is about violence against other men.
The $800,000 One Punch Can Kill campaign, launched today on the recommendation of the government’s Youth Violence Task Force, aims to reach Generation Y through MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail and radio.
The slogan “I support blokes who don’t fight” will attempt to get young women to discourage men from responding to heated situations with violence.
Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said many assaults resulted from a mix of alcohol and a “perceived insult”.
“Sometimes as well, that perceived insult relates to a girlfriend, so the theme of this advertising … is to encourage young women to help in those situations where violence is a potentiality,” Mr Atkinson told reporters in Brisbane today.
“It’s smart, it’s intelligent, it’s cool, it’s sensible and it’s not lacking masculinity in any sense to say, `I’m going to walk away from this and step back from it.”’
Premier Anna Bligh said the message was particularly important in the party season.
“Holding your temper, learning how to deal with arguments without resorting to violence is important,” Ms Bligh said.
“One punch cannot only seriously harm or kill somebody else, it can ruin your life forever.”
She said young men should understand the consequences of violence.
And I have to say that this annoyed me. You see, women are not only responsible for violence by men against themselves and other women, they’re also now apparently responsible for violence that men commit against other men.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Dec
11
Prude or Slut? We’re asking the wrong question.
Filed Under assholes, books, feminism, marketing, media, misogyny, objectification, patriarchy, pop culture, sex and sexuality, slut-shaming, social conservatives, women’s health | 3 Comments
A few weeks ago, Jessica introduced us (or at least me) to the latest nut of the “pro-modesty” crowd: Carol Platt Liebau (watch out for the scary eyes!). She has recently published this new book, just like all of the other pro-modesty books, called Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America Too!). The title made me giggle out loud, but Liebau isn’t joking. Today, the Telegraph, a British online news source, gives her some press time.
Teenage girls would rather be sexy than clever, according to a female academic.
In a society that celebrates people such as Paris Hilton, girls are being brainwashed into believing that promiscuity is synonymous with success, says Carol Platt Liebau.
In Prude: How The Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls, Liebau claims there is “scant recognition or respect” for a woman’s achievement that is not associated with sex appeal.
Liebau says the sexy images of performers such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera catapulted them to fame.
She claims that teenage girls are growing up in a culture in which being called “a slut” is preferable to being labelled “a prude”.
“The overwhelming lessons teenagers are now learning from the world around them is that being sexy is the ultimate accolade, trumping intelligence, character and all other accomplishments at every stage of a woman’s life,” says the author, managing editor of Harvard Law Review.
advertisement“The new female imperative is that it is only through promiscuity and sexual aggression that girls can achieve admiration and recognition,” she says.
The biggest problem here is how the Telegraph takes her seriously. Of course, I know that it’s the Telegraph, and we can’t expect much better. But we should be able to, because people do actually read the thing and they actually do believe what’s in it.
Let’s run through the problems.
Popularity: 32% [?]
Nov
20
J-E-T-S! What does that spell? SEXUAL ASSAULT!
Filed Under assholes, marketing, misogyny, objectification, patriarchy, pop culture, rape and sexual assault, sex and sexuality, sexism, sexual exploitation and harassment, violence against women and girls | 20 Comments
So. Reader Mom from Outside the Toybox sent this disturbing little story along to me. By the time I got home from work, it seemed like just about everyone else had already blogged about it. But it also seems like there’s not a lot of analysis, either. On the one hand, the story kind of speaks for itself. On the other, I really do feel like it needs to be put into a broader context, being the crazy, liberal, overreacting feminist that I am. Watch out for the sarcasm up ahead.
At halftime of the Jets’ home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, several hundred men lined one of Giants Stadium’s two pedestrian ramps at Gate D. Three deep in some areas, they whistled and jumped up and down. Then they began an obscenity-laced chant, demanding that the few women in the gathering expose their breasts.
When one woman appeared to be on the verge of obliging, the hooting and hollering intensified. But then she walked away, and plastic beer bottles and spit went flying. Boos swept through the crowd of unsatisfied men.
Marco Hoffner, an 18-year-old from Lacey Township, N.J., was expecting to see more. Not from the Jets — they pulled off a big upset over the Steelers. He wanted more from the alternative halftime show that, according to many fans, has been a staple at Jets home games for years.
“Very disappointed, because we’re used to seeing a lot,” Hoffner said.
The mood of previous Gate D crowds — captured on video clips posted on YouTube — sometimes bordered on hostile, not unlike the spirit of infamously aggressive European soccer hooligans. One clip online shows a woman being groped by a man standing next to her.
Sunday’s scene played out for about 20 minutes, and at least one woman granted the men’s request, setting off a roar as if the former star running back Curtis Martin had just scored a touchdown. Martin was actually nearby, being honored on the field in the official halftime show, which had a far less intense audience.
Popularity: 54% [?]
Nov
13
The Female Condom Revisited
Filed Under WOC issues, class and economics, education and schools, human rights, marketing, patriarchy, products, race and racism, rape and sexual assault, reproductive justice, sex and sexuality, sex work, violence against women and girls, women’s health | 4 Comments
Here’s something you probably haven’t heard much about in a while: the female condom. Why talk about it now? Because finally, someone has had the sense to redesign it.
Some history:
The female condom has never caught on in the United States. But in the third world, where it was introduced in the late 1990s, public health workers hoped it would overthrow the politics of the bedroom, empower women and stop the AIDS epidemic in its tracks.
It did not. Female condoms never really caught on there, either.
Only about 12 million female condoms are delivered each year in poor countries, compared with about 6 billion male condoms. Couples complained that the female version was awkward, unsightly, noisy and slippery — or, as Mitchell Warren, who was one of its earliest champions, now says, “the yuck factor was a problem.” Many women tried it, but in the end, it was adopted mainly by prostitutes.
Actually, I hadn’t heard before that the female condom was popular among sex workers. Does anyone know if this is true? In any case, I’m not nuts about the tone of the statement, which seems to imply that it’s a useless victory. Of course we want any contraceptive to have a wider market, but I’d say that if sex workers are using it as a way to protect themselves, that’s a win.
Anyway, I digress. The point is, as almost everyone agrees, the original sucked and was weird. I’ve never tried one; in fact, I don’t know anyone who has ever admitted using one to me. If you have, let us know about it (you’re more than welcome to leave your comment anonymously). So there’s a lot of room for improvement, to say the least, and the new design certainly sounds interesting:
The redesigned female condom is made of softer, thinner polyurethane to better transmit warmth. It is easier to insert; one end is bunched up as small as a tampon, an improvement on the old design, which resembled the stiff rubber ring of a diaphragm and had to be folded into a figure 8 for insertion.
During sex, the new female condom also moves more like a vagina than the old design did, according to couples in Seattle, Thailand, Mexico and South Africa who tested a series of prototypes, said Joanie Robertson, project manager for the condom at PATH. The old design hung passively from the rubber ring, which could shift around and sometimes hurt; the new design has dots of adhesive foam that adhere to the vaginal walls, expanding with them during arousal.
According to PATH, more than 90 percent of the couples were satisfied with the ease of use and comfort of the new condom, and 98 percent found the sensation of sex to be “O.K. to very satisfactory.”
You can also check out a drawing of the new design in the article itself.
. . .
Popularity: 21% [?]
Nov
8
A Preview of Things to Come
Filed Under assholes, gender, marketing, media, misogyny, objectification, patriarchy, pop culture, sex and sexuality, sexism, sexual exploitation and harassment, violence against women and girls | 6 Comments
Well, unlike with Guitar Hero, at least we couldn’t have expected any better. It is good to know, though, that Rockstar has maintained its misogynist integrity. I’d hate to see them compromise their hate of women for something as silly as not insulting them.
If you want to get even more pissed off, check out the comments on this thread, where posters are completely incapable of differentiating between prudishness and and a distaste for mindless objectification of women, or between “sexually suggestive” and “woman’s half naked, pornographically reminiscent body.” Cause, you know, only women have sexual organs and/or the ability to turn anyone on, what with their boobs and all. Good times.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Nov
6
The Racism of Cosmetic Surgery
Filed Under WOC issues, beauty myths, class and economics, fat-shaming, feminism, marketing, media, misogyny, objectification, patriarchy, pop culture, race and racism, women’s health | 13 Comments
Beauty and the Breast has posted an article by Jennifer Cognard-Black, who has also written this great article on plastic surgery for Ms. Magazine. Her latest, Exporting American Beauty: Plastic Surgery and the New Culture of Worldwide Acceptance, was apparently intended for Ms., but they decided against printing it. I’d say that they missed out, and I urge you to go read the whole thing.
When discussing the social perils (rather than just physical risks) of plastic surgery, feminists generally comment on how an “ideal” cookie-cutter woman is being constructed that looks easy to emulate if you have the money and are willing to go under the knife, but isn’t. That model is generally blond, with big boobs, a flat, tight stomach, small but curvy hips, wide eyes, small nose, big lips, and high cheek bones. It’s a long list. And yet we also tend to fail to discuss that it’s not only white women trying to reach this strange blond ideal — plastic surgery patients who are women of color are using th