Confidence and the Power of Mindset
39 minutes ago
Showing posts with label Feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feminism. Show all posts
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Don’t Call Selma Hayek a Feminist. She Doesn't Want You To.
(source)
Per Jezebel
On Monday in Beverly Hills, Hayek was honored as a women's rights advocate at Equality Now's Make Equality Reality event. Despite that, and her continued work on behalf of women worldwide including co-founding Chime for Change,
"a global campaign to convene, unite and strengthen the voices speaking
out for girls and women around the world," Hayek does not want to be
called a feminist. Via People:
Despite her passionate support for women, Hayek told PEOPLE that she does not consider herself to be a feminist.
"I am not a feminist," she said. "If men were going through the things women are going through today, I would be fighting for them with just as much passion. I believe in equality."
This is an example of a person giving into the myth that feminists are against men. This is in of itself an example of patriarchy. she has been influenced as so many have, by the temperament of higher powers who believe it should be the logical thought that women who go against the grain, cannot be respected or desirable. This is largely but not always true. Being feminist is hard. Her words tell me that her work for women has not been as involved, enlightened, insightful, eductional, or humbling as one would think.
I am not so much angry as I am sad. I can only hope that there are some around her who will address this with her lovingly, and will not let this issue fall to the wayside. We need more to use the word "feminist", so to squash its stigma.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Columbine. It's Been 15 Years.
Today marks the15th year after Columbine. Each
time this year, I settle in for some reflection, & often a good dose
of reading.
Feminist-sociologist, Michael Kimmel, has asserted that mass shootings seem to have a common theme. Male. White.
As a person in the mental health biz, I do know that it can play a part (and I am not suggesting that it had or had not within the Columbine events) but I also think we cannot ignore, that it's not about just illness, and guns. It's often anger, about race, and gender.
There is great love for all those who want it, and share it--but anger is the only real emotion that is rewarded among men. Aren't we done yet? Can we put down privilege? Can we put down patriarchy? Can we create and move forward with resources for all?
(source)
To those who died, to those who still suffer. You are bigger than I will ever be.
Feminist-sociologist, Michael Kimmel, has asserted that mass shootings seem to have a common theme. Male. White.
As a person in the mental health biz, I do know that it can play a part (and I am not suggesting that it had or had not within the Columbine events) but I also think we cannot ignore, that it's not about just illness, and guns. It's often anger, about race, and gender.
There is great love for all those who want it, and share it--but anger is the only real emotion that is rewarded among men. Aren't we done yet? Can we put down privilege? Can we put down patriarchy? Can we create and move forward with resources for all?
(source)
To those who died, to those who still suffer. You are bigger than I will ever be.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
the urk and disappointment of miley cyrus, caused the abandon of hope and capital letters
oh miley. i turned off the tv, but didn't think to turn off the magazines. as i turned my head too quickly to avoid self inflicted pain-- that i decided to blame the sexified teen for ---i had an inspired thought. madonna was considered--almost by law--to be an inspiration to all things pop, female,and impressionable enough to feel honored to partake in the clumsy losing of the clothes tradition. but ...madonna grew up. grew, aged, and got wise and spiritual. humility and arm muscle is the new skinny. i believe it truly. let us all roll around on the floor in something lacy and white, in symbolic prayer. maybe they'll grow out of it and find that the way to enlightenment is to make a kabuki themed music video. it's just a simple game of follow the leader. for the sake of your kids; in Britney we trust.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
F-words and f-words
Dear Sexism,
There is no insistence from feminists, that feminism be spelled with a capital F. It's your insistence that we think it's important that is sexist.
There is no insistence from feminists, that feminism be spelled with a capital F. It's your insistence that we think it's important that is sexist.
Friday, January 3, 2014
How the Media Failed Women in 2013 -- The Representation Project
I've noticed that every year, someone posts a video of this kind. I can't imagine there will be a year where we aren't pushing against this, but I do hope we are moving forward. Tag you're it --pass this on.
- Credits:
- ORIGINAL: By The Representation Project.(Not to be confused with Miss Representation.)
Brave Miss World --Weeks Before She Was Crowned 'Miss World,' She Was Raped.
Brave Miss World - Documentary - 2013
Visit the official facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/BraveMissWorldDoc
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
Girls going wild in red light district -- stop the traffik.org
Girls going wild in red light district
Posted in 2012 by DuvalGuillaume
Description from the Post:
So you think you will dance? Sometimes things are not what they seem. Men, women and children are trafficked - tricked, forced and exploited in the sex industry. Awareness campaign created by Duval Guillaume Modem and produced by monodot in support of STOP THE TRAFFIK. Visit http://www.stopthetraffik.org/ to get involved. Music: a-shja by Raveyards vs. DJ Uinkxxx
Saturday, August 10, 2013
I'm glad you said it
Because I don't have the widest audience.
FaceCulture
"Lady Gaga once said about feminism: I am no feminist, I love men. That illustrates an interesting misconception about feminism."
FaceCulture
"Lady Gaga once said about feminism: I am no feminist, I love men. That illustrates an interesting misconception about feminism."
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Yeezus: Good, Not Great, and Quite Misogynist by kris_ex at LA Weekly
Kanye West has plenty of good songs, but the ego has landed once again. To offer up a moldy and cobwebbed phrase, he has made yet another attempt to "push the envelope". He will surely convince his already fans, that he is edgy, and new. He is fully aware that his lyrics are unacceptable, and he has found a way to market it: in other words, it is calculated.
Life affords us many mistakes, and although none of us are perfect, I'd like to think that as we age, we grow. This adult man, who is now a new father to a baby girl, is spewing lyrics that his young one, will some day hear. Being that our culture is indeed seeped in sexism and racism, you never know, she may actually come to embrace what he has laid down for us.
Although it is simple enough to side-step the fact that if that album is not to our liking, there is a much larger issue that cannot be written off.
Below is an article from LA Weekly.
Once in a while Kanye West goes ahead and does something that's truly impressive. You can't always tell this because, for West, there's no difference between an act of genius and being a genius. For him, genius doesn't stem from action; genius is an extension of his very state of being.
His unwavering sense of "complete awesomeness at all times" is bolstered by a weird feedback loop of celebrities, fans and critics who hate to love him and love to hate him. Each, however, pumps up his self-importance to the point where his sixth album, Yeezus -- a very good, but not great work and one of the few records in recent history that can actually live up to the claim of being eagerly anticipated -- is already being proclaimed as a masterpiece, despite its lack of focus and center.
Musically, Yeezus is an enjoyably-adventurous deconstruction of industrial rock, electronic dance, ragga and new wave that more than once eschews drums and often pulls in reggae vocals for ominous effects. (For added measure, there's a snippet of a chorale on "On Sight" and an outro, provided via sample, by Hungarian Rock band Omega on "New Slaves.")
The album is short, clocking in at 40 minutes, and only one of its ten songs is listed as primarily produced by West. Whereas his past albums have concentrated on radio-friendly melodies, lush production, arena rap and navel-gazing, Yeezus is stark and minimal and seems determined to be the music that comes on in sketchy warehouse parties at about 3 am when your second wave of drugs is wearing off and you'll try whatever anyone has, because YOLO.
Much like 2008's 808s & Heartbreak, the rapping on Yeezus seems to be an afterthought. (Rick Rubin, who executive-produced the album in the 23rd hour, revealed that vocals for five songs were laid in two hours before West caught a flight to Milan.) This is actually a good thing, because as a rapper West is often silly, sloppy and belabored -- the type of guy that may or may not be serious when angrily demanding croissants, and doesn't realize that the 300 were Spartans (not Romans) or that C-Murder came from the Calliope (not Magnolia) projects. (He also doesn't know who starred in In Too Deep [Omar Epps, not Mekhi Phifer]). None of this stops him from rapping with gusto, because even when he gets bested by guest rappers on his own songs, as on Late Registration's "Gone," he claims his superficial raps as super-official.
Yet the glaring deficiency in West's raps on Yeezus is not his skillset as much as it is his utter lack of empathy for women as human beings. So, yeah, the guy with the trophy girlfriend who just gave birth to his daughter manages to throw a few lines that could be read as unintentional jabs at Kim Kardashian. On "On Sight," he raps "I know she like chocolate men/ She got more niggas off than Cochran" which seems a little too close to home on too many levels.
"I'm In It" manages to spin race and sexism for maximum offensiveness not once, but twice: "Eating Asian pussy/ All I need was sweet and sour sauce" and "Black girl sippin' white wine/ Put my fist in her like a Civil Rights sign." On "Hold My Liquor," he mixes wealth and power with sex and misogyny proclaiming "One more fuck and I can own ya," after dismissing that he "smashed your Corolla" while parking his Range Rover--which is like, whoa dude. No one man should have all that anger.
The two punk-channeling songs he premiered on last month's SNL performance -- "Black Skinhead" and "New Slaves" -- are the album's most pointed numbers; they're also the kind of songs crafted to be played very loudly in order to make white people incredibly uncomfortable.
On the surface that's all bravo because, you know, fuck your post-racism fallacy. But with Kanye, his rants -- about celebrity, about art, about race and class -- are always about personal injustices done to him masquerading as some sort of quest for social reform. He begins "New Slaves" making allusions to picking cotton and Jim Crow, and if you imagine listening to "New Slaves" outside of the context of contemporary Kanye-ism, it sounds like the Last Poets. And the release of the video -- not through traditional outlets but projected onto buildings in places like the University of Tucson, Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, and the heart of Fifth Avenue -- was incredibly revolutionary. But it was also visual screed against consumerism by the guy who produces fetish item sneakers and has worshipped at the storefront of more obscure high-end brands than any rapper ever.
So of course his finger-pointing at the prison industrial complex and racist attitudes is marred by Kanyecentrism: his response to such harsh realities is to use his resources to move his family to foreign lands (because he's fucking rich and fuck the rest of us) and, more tellingly, to cuckold a powerbroker by taking his wife and ejaculating "on her Hampton blouse and in her Hampton mouth," because, for Kanye women are objects and the best way to retaliate against his oppressor is to violate said oppressor's most prized object. On the one hand, his move is all about powerlessness exerting power in the face of power; on the other it's all about his personal sense of satisfaction. Power to the people? Not so much.
In his attempts to be politically astute, Kanye West falls woefully short, but music and culture would probably be worse off without him. The same night that he premiered "New Slaves," Birdman and Rick Ross dropped a song named "Pop That Pussy" while Plies released a ditty called "Fucking or What" -- both being the type of lowbrow, ignorant music that makes you ashamed to say you like rap in mixed company. When compared to regressive bullshit like that, Yeezus is truly impressive.
Life affords us many mistakes, and although none of us are perfect, I'd like to think that as we age, we grow. This adult man, who is now a new father to a baby girl, is spewing lyrics that his young one, will some day hear. Being that our culture is indeed seeped in sexism and racism, you never know, she may actually come to embrace what he has laid down for us.
Although it is simple enough to side-step the fact that if that album is not to our liking, there is a much larger issue that cannot be written off.
Below is an article from LA Weekly.
Yeezus: Good, Not Great, and Quite Misogynist
 |
Once in a while Kanye West goes ahead and does something that's truly impressive. You can't always tell this because, for West, there's no difference between an act of genius and being a genius. For him, genius doesn't stem from action; genius is an extension of his very state of being.
His unwavering sense of "complete awesomeness at all times" is bolstered by a weird feedback loop of celebrities, fans and critics who hate to love him and love to hate him. Each, however, pumps up his self-importance to the point where his sixth album, Yeezus -- a very good, but not great work and one of the few records in recent history that can actually live up to the claim of being eagerly anticipated -- is already being proclaimed as a masterpiece, despite its lack of focus and center.
Musically, Yeezus is an enjoyably-adventurous deconstruction of industrial rock, electronic dance, ragga and new wave that more than once eschews drums and often pulls in reggae vocals for ominous effects. (For added measure, there's a snippet of a chorale on "On Sight" and an outro, provided via sample, by Hungarian Rock band Omega on "New Slaves.")
The album is short, clocking in at 40 minutes, and only one of its ten songs is listed as primarily produced by West. Whereas his past albums have concentrated on radio-friendly melodies, lush production, arena rap and navel-gazing, Yeezus is stark and minimal and seems determined to be the music that comes on in sketchy warehouse parties at about 3 am when your second wave of drugs is wearing off and you'll try whatever anyone has, because YOLO.
Much like 2008's 808s & Heartbreak, the rapping on Yeezus seems to be an afterthought. (Rick Rubin, who executive-produced the album in the 23rd hour, revealed that vocals for five songs were laid in two hours before West caught a flight to Milan.) This is actually a good thing, because as a rapper West is often silly, sloppy and belabored -- the type of guy that may or may not be serious when angrily demanding croissants, and doesn't realize that the 300 were Spartans (not Romans) or that C-Murder came from the Calliope (not Magnolia) projects. (He also doesn't know who starred in In Too Deep [Omar Epps, not Mekhi Phifer]). None of this stops him from rapping with gusto, because even when he gets bested by guest rappers on his own songs, as on Late Registration's "Gone," he claims his superficial raps as super-official.
Yet the glaring deficiency in West's raps on Yeezus is not his skillset as much as it is his utter lack of empathy for women as human beings. So, yeah, the guy with the trophy girlfriend who just gave birth to his daughter manages to throw a few lines that could be read as unintentional jabs at Kim Kardashian. On "On Sight," he raps "I know she like chocolate men/ She got more niggas off than Cochran" which seems a little too close to home on too many levels.
"I'm In It" manages to spin race and sexism for maximum offensiveness not once, but twice: "Eating Asian pussy/ All I need was sweet and sour sauce" and "Black girl sippin' white wine/ Put my fist in her like a Civil Rights sign." On "Hold My Liquor," he mixes wealth and power with sex and misogyny proclaiming "One more fuck and I can own ya," after dismissing that he "smashed your Corolla" while parking his Range Rover--which is like, whoa dude. No one man should have all that anger.
The two punk-channeling songs he premiered on last month's SNL performance -- "Black Skinhead" and "New Slaves" -- are the album's most pointed numbers; they're also the kind of songs crafted to be played very loudly in order to make white people incredibly uncomfortable.
On the surface that's all bravo because, you know, fuck your post-racism fallacy. But with Kanye, his rants -- about celebrity, about art, about race and class -- are always about personal injustices done to him masquerading as some sort of quest for social reform. He begins "New Slaves" making allusions to picking cotton and Jim Crow, and if you imagine listening to "New Slaves" outside of the context of contemporary Kanye-ism, it sounds like the Last Poets. And the release of the video -- not through traditional outlets but projected onto buildings in places like the University of Tucson, Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, and the heart of Fifth Avenue -- was incredibly revolutionary. But it was also visual screed against consumerism by the guy who produces fetish item sneakers and has worshipped at the storefront of more obscure high-end brands than any rapper ever.
So of course his finger-pointing at the prison industrial complex and racist attitudes is marred by Kanyecentrism: his response to such harsh realities is to use his resources to move his family to foreign lands (because he's fucking rich and fuck the rest of us) and, more tellingly, to cuckold a powerbroker by taking his wife and ejaculating "on her Hampton blouse and in her Hampton mouth," because, for Kanye women are objects and the best way to retaliate against his oppressor is to violate said oppressor's most prized object. On the one hand, his move is all about powerlessness exerting power in the face of power; on the other it's all about his personal sense of satisfaction. Power to the people? Not so much.
In his attempts to be politically astute, Kanye West falls woefully short, but music and culture would probably be worse off without him. The same night that he premiered "New Slaves," Birdman and Rick Ross dropped a song named "Pop That Pussy" while Plies released a ditty called "Fucking or What" -- both being the type of lowbrow, ignorant music that makes you ashamed to say you like rap in mixed company. When compared to regressive bullshit like that, Yeezus is truly impressive.
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer - HBO Documentary
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer - HBO Documentary - 2013
Posted on Jun 17, 2013 by QMediaNews
HBO How and when did you get involved in the story?
Mike Lerner I started in February of last year when pictures of Pussy Riot started to appear in the London press, just before the cathedral event. I've spent my life making films about the place where art and politics meet and immediately was alerted to the potential for this story. Once they had been arrested, I knew for certain we should be making a film with these guys.
Max Pozdorovkin I grew up in Moscow and spent a lot of time there for work. I was always interested in them and Voina, the other performance group they were in, and their politics and the art. I was attending the trial and thought it was one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. Once we found out a lot of the trial had been filmed by RIA, the Russian news agency, we made inroads in getting the material. We realized that the cameramen began rolling before the trial began, when the women were sitting in separate cells and speaking to each other. It was such an incredible window, we wanted to base as much of the film on that as possible.
HBO Was it the cathedral setting or that they were women that touched a nerve?
Max Pozdorovkin For the people inside the cathedral, the biggest offense was that they went near the altar. They trespassed where no one, except the patriarch, is allowed to go.
Mike Lerner That was their aim, to provoke a reaction. And part of their offense was not only being on the altar, but with bare arms and exposed flesh.
HBO How did you get their families to participate in the documentary?
Mike Lerner Masha's mother was very reluctant because she had been hounded by the press in a number of negative pieces about them. Nadia's father has been very vocal and open. The other two parents are very unused to being in the public eye. They really wanted to keep a low profile.
Max Pozdorovkin What's so rich about the parents is how their own transformations, especially Katia's dad and Masha's mom, say so much about the story. They weren't really happy that their daughters did what they did, but seeing how the system overacted, they understood the point of their daughters were making.
Katia's father, even before he knew about the film, said to me in the courtroom, "There are two Russias here and both sides hate one another. They refuse to speak to and understand one another." There was a great deal of truth in that sentiment. We really started to think about the film around this idea.
HBO How did the trial play in Russia?
Max Pozdorovkin It was a huge soap opera and there were protests outside of the courtroom, people both for and against them. It was like a miniature of the whole thing. Most Russians still do not like them and believed they should have been punished. But the consensus is slipping; people now believe the punishment was too harsh.
HBO So in Russia, are all defendants caged during proceedings?
Mike Lerner It does seem so incredibly medieval, three women in an iron cage. But they weren't getting special treatment. That is what happens in a Russian court. For us, it seemed like the perfect metaphor for martyrdom.
Max Pozdorovkin It ties into the idea of a public spanking. Public disgrace is significant for the film. In formerly Communist countries, the court system is used to perform these public punishments. That's why we use the show trial materials from 1937. This punitive mentality is still there and repellant; the cages, the aquarium, are testament to that. The only special treatment they got were vicious dogs to lead them in. Not all prisoners get the dogs.
Mike Lerner Only gangsters and terrorists.
HBO Did Pussy Riot ever expect to become an international story?
Max Pozdorovkin They had no idea. But they're media performance artists and they measure success by the degree of provocation. They probably couldn't believe they could cause so much.
HBO How do Nadia and Masha feel about Katia being out while they're still serving sentences?
Max Pozdorovkin Katia has worked tirelessly on filing appeals on all sorts of levels. Both for the original trial, based on improper process, as well helping with the appeals for early release of the women. In a guerilla group, there's no benefit to have everyone behind bars.
HBO Since the appeals continue, will you be making updates to the documentary?
Max Pozdorovkin I think if something extraordinary happened, that would be cause to go back. But the story is about what these women do in court during the trial.
Read more: http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/puss...
Mike Lerner I started in February of last year when pictures of Pussy Riot started to appear in the London press, just before the cathedral event. I've spent my life making films about the place where art and politics meet and immediately was alerted to the potential for this story. Once they had been arrested, I knew for certain we should be making a film with these guys.
Max Pozdorovkin I grew up in Moscow and spent a lot of time there for work. I was always interested in them and Voina, the other performance group they were in, and their politics and the art. I was attending the trial and thought it was one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. Once we found out a lot of the trial had been filmed by RIA, the Russian news agency, we made inroads in getting the material. We realized that the cameramen began rolling before the trial began, when the women were sitting in separate cells and speaking to each other. It was such an incredible window, we wanted to base as much of the film on that as possible.
HBO Was it the cathedral setting or that they were women that touched a nerve?
Max Pozdorovkin For the people inside the cathedral, the biggest offense was that they went near the altar. They trespassed where no one, except the patriarch, is allowed to go.
Mike Lerner That was their aim, to provoke a reaction. And part of their offense was not only being on the altar, but with bare arms and exposed flesh.
HBO How did you get their families to participate in the documentary?
Mike Lerner Masha's mother was very reluctant because she had been hounded by the press in a number of negative pieces about them. Nadia's father has been very vocal and open. The other two parents are very unused to being in the public eye. They really wanted to keep a low profile.
Max Pozdorovkin What's so rich about the parents is how their own transformations, especially Katia's dad and Masha's mom, say so much about the story. They weren't really happy that their daughters did what they did, but seeing how the system overacted, they understood the point of their daughters were making.
Katia's father, even before he knew about the film, said to me in the courtroom, "There are two Russias here and both sides hate one another. They refuse to speak to and understand one another." There was a great deal of truth in that sentiment. We really started to think about the film around this idea.
HBO How did the trial play in Russia?
Max Pozdorovkin It was a huge soap opera and there were protests outside of the courtroom, people both for and against them. It was like a miniature of the whole thing. Most Russians still do not like them and believed they should have been punished. But the consensus is slipping; people now believe the punishment was too harsh.
HBO So in Russia, are all defendants caged during proceedings?
Mike Lerner It does seem so incredibly medieval, three women in an iron cage. But they weren't getting special treatment. That is what happens in a Russian court. For us, it seemed like the perfect metaphor for martyrdom.
Max Pozdorovkin It ties into the idea of a public spanking. Public disgrace is significant for the film. In formerly Communist countries, the court system is used to perform these public punishments. That's why we use the show trial materials from 1937. This punitive mentality is still there and repellant; the cages, the aquarium, are testament to that. The only special treatment they got were vicious dogs to lead them in. Not all prisoners get the dogs.
Mike Lerner Only gangsters and terrorists.
HBO Did Pussy Riot ever expect to become an international story?
Max Pozdorovkin They had no idea. But they're media performance artists and they measure success by the degree of provocation. They probably couldn't believe they could cause so much.
HBO How do Nadia and Masha feel about Katia being out while they're still serving sentences?
Max Pozdorovkin Katia has worked tirelessly on filing appeals on all sorts of levels. Both for the original trial, based on improper process, as well helping with the appeals for early release of the women. In a guerilla group, there's no benefit to have everyone behind bars.
HBO Since the appeals continue, will you be making updates to the documentary?
Max Pozdorovkin I think if something extraordinary happened, that would be cause to go back. But the story is about what these women do in court during the trial.
Read more: http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/puss...
Sunday, May 26, 2013
The First Sexist Ad to Greet Me Tonight
I've never been one who can succumb to "new normals." I don't tap out easily.
How many years has it been since gasoline has risen beyond $2.00? I'm still not okay with it; I still think gas should be under 2.
Advertising makes me want to scream, and I do mean literally. It makes me angry and often on a physical level.
Billboards existed long before internet advertising; and it certainly is a norm for many. Can you remember a time when the horizon was clear of falsified images -- and before you was exactly what should be? Sky and land. I suppose it depends on when you were born.
I am angered by the commercials that play before the pre-views in movie theaters, and most recently, the advertisements that pop up on YouTube screens as well as commercials that appear before you click play on a video. It takes time and causes frustration that prompts a, "Rrrrrr!" out of me.
Visit a website and you will be confronted -- more like assaulted -- with ads that you must click out of or click to minimize. Some sites will show you how clever and intrusive they are by serving floating ads that you have to chase before exiting.
Tonight I was victim to a side panel ad. In the right hand margin, was an ad for feta cheese.
Come again?
Your traditionalist, conservative grandmother tells you that you will attract men if you can cook. If you can make a good pie, you will be surely sought. Right?
I have come to the easy assumption that this ad is geared towards heterosexual women. Food ads are almost always meant for women. Sexist, homobphobic norms, tell us that it is women who do most of the cooking in households, and straight women are always in need of mates. Marketing companies capitalize on these thoughts.
Oppressive advertisement is certainly not a new norm, it is the norm.
According to this ad, the elderly woman with a shaking finger knows best. Cook good food, and you'll never be alone. You won't have to resort to the last resort, that is making a fumbling attempt at love via the internet.
Well, I've never had a woman tell me that I can avoid a life-time membership of the Singles Club, if I can spruce up a good lasagna; nor have I tried internet dating. That being said; I am quickly able to recognize that this ad is slung shot, from the soulless, sexist, and homophobic media. A communicative medium that profits off of the anxieties of some, and drives their message home until you buy their product.
I'm not buying the lies and I'm certainly not buying any of that damn feta.
How many years has it been since gasoline has risen beyond $2.00? I'm still not okay with it; I still think gas should be under 2.
Advertising makes me want to scream, and I do mean literally. It makes me angry and often on a physical level.
Billboards existed long before internet advertising; and it certainly is a norm for many. Can you remember a time when the horizon was clear of falsified images -- and before you was exactly what should be? Sky and land. I suppose it depends on when you were born.
I am angered by the commercials that play before the pre-views in movie theaters, and most recently, the advertisements that pop up on YouTube screens as well as commercials that appear before you click play on a video. It takes time and causes frustration that prompts a, "Rrrrrr!" out of me.
Visit a website and you will be confronted -- more like assaulted -- with ads that you must click out of or click to minimize. Some sites will show you how clever and intrusive they are by serving floating ads that you have to chase before exiting.
Tonight I was victim to a side panel ad. In the right hand margin, was an ad for feta cheese.
Come again?
Your traditionalist, conservative grandmother tells you that you will attract men if you can cook. If you can make a good pie, you will be surely sought. Right?
I have come to the easy assumption that this ad is geared towards heterosexual women. Food ads are almost always meant for women. Sexist, homobphobic norms, tell us that it is women who do most of the cooking in households, and straight women are always in need of mates. Marketing companies capitalize on these thoughts.
Oppressive advertisement is certainly not a new norm, it is the norm.
According to this ad, the elderly woman with a shaking finger knows best. Cook good food, and you'll never be alone. You won't have to resort to the last resort, that is making a fumbling attempt at love via the internet.
Well, I've never had a woman tell me that I can avoid a life-time membership of the Singles Club, if I can spruce up a good lasagna; nor have I tried internet dating. That being said; I am quickly able to recognize that this ad is slung shot, from the soulless, sexist, and homophobic media. A communicative medium that profits off of the anxieties of some, and drives their message home until you buy their product.
I'm not buying the lies and I'm certainly not buying any of that damn feta.
Choice Feminism by Meghan Murphy
A gloriously insightful article by Meghan Murphy; featured in the Summer 2012 Herizons Magazine. I have bolded the passages I found especially pertinent.
To learn more about Herizons (I admit; the title of this mag, is ridiculous), to subscribe, or to make single magazine purchases, click here.
Choice Feminism by Meghan Murphy
HERIZONS SUMMER 2012 Vol. 26 No.1
HOW OUR RALLYING CRY GOT CO-OPTED (AND WHY WE NEED TO TAKE IT BACK)
Have you noticed that a lot of conversations about female empowerment today seem to be stuck in a discourse of choice that makes it difficult to challenge—well, anything at all?
Falling somewhere between victim feminism and the American dream, choice feminism is the new reigning queen of empowerment discourse. In contrast to political philosophies that explore the ways in which structural inequality limits freedom, choice feminism tells us that every individual is free to choose and that choice is empowering, no matter what the choice actually is.
The result is that the term choice is now employed in feminist debates about everything from the sex industry to marriage and makeup. Choice feminism dictates that any time a woman makes a choice it is an act of feminism.
Because a woman chooses to work in a strip club, for example, the factors that could affect her choice to do this work—which may include class, colonialism, education, abuse or the reality of living in a culture that objectifies women’s bodies—are neatly erased. No one is forcing her to be there, choice feminism says. If men will pay, why not take the cash?
The decision made by Slutwalk DC organizers to hold a fundraiser for an event last year in a strip club invoked this notion of choice feminism. Many feminists balked at the idea of using a strip club for a seemingly oppositional cause. However, the organizers responded in a statement on their Tumblr page stating, “This is a non-judgmental movement that embraces all choices a woman wishes to make.” Really? Since when is nonjudgmental the descriptor of a movement based on achieving collective freedom from oppression and exploitation? What if the choices being made perpetuate patriarchal ideas?
Part of the problem is that all of the well-intentioned talk about female empowerment in the third wave has left many of us fearful of falling into the much-criticized realm of “victim feminism.” Maybe, for some, the empowerment message of choice is simply a reflection of a sense of entitlement to all the world has to offer.
Perhaps, too, liberal feminism, commonly seen as being focused on individualism and on reform rather than on structural change, is as far as some are willing to go. Perhaps some think it is the best they can hope for.
Whatever its origins, choice feminism has co-opted feminist language in a way that takes the political out of the personal. It’s all about whatever makes you feel good—right now!
We need to reclaim the word choice. After all, it is one of the founding philosophical underpinnings of the modern feminist movement and the slogan in the fight for reproductive rights. Choice is the embodiment of the political demand for abortion. Historically, it was a liberating concept that represented women’s freedom and autonomy—not only in terms of their reproductive decisions, but also in more public aspects of life and society. Having the right to choose an abortion allows many women to feel they have a measure of control over their bodies and their lives.
This particular use of choice rhetoric was not without problems, however, since more privileged women always had greater access to reproductive choices compared to more marginalized women. Today, though, choice is no longer a rallying cry for change. Instead, choice has become a gag used to stifle debate.
Denise Thompson wrote about the problem of individualism as a foundation for feminist action in her book Radical Feminism Today. She argues that “if domination is desired, it cannot be challenged and opposed.” So, for example, if sex worker is framed as an individual choice, the system of prostitution can be dissociated from the idea of systematic or gendered oppression. If prostitution is only a personal life choice, it need not have anything to do with patriarchy. It becomes a private issue rather than a public one. And yet, as we all know, private choices don’t provide the basis for a movement. Viewing prostitution as a personal choice frames it as an empowerment exercise and, in so doing, erases the context of male domination and female exploitation in which it typically occurs.
The rise of choice feminism could either be interpreted as a significant weakness of the movement or simply as the effect of postmodernism on feminist theory and women’s studies, an aspect of feminist thought that is often criticized for being too vague and offering little in terms of action. Either way, choice feminism is not furthering debate, but stifling it.
Choice is far more complex than adherents of choice feminism make it out to be. For example, while our freedom to make choices enhances our ability to feel personally empowered, many of the choices we make do not help anyone but ourselves. One woman’s pole-dancing class might be another’s sole method of obtaining an income.
Heaping this decontextualized notion of choice upon the often very limited decisions made by women who are disadvantaged erases the structural inequities that feminism would normally set out to change. As feminists, we need to remember that, in this world, one person’s freedom often comes at the expense of another’s. This includes the West’s exploitation of developing countries as well as issues of class and privilege right here at home. The birth control pill, later hailed as a huge leap towards women’s liberation, was tested on under-priviledged women in Puerto Rico before it was allowed to be sold on the North American market. White middle-class women’s choices have always taken priority over the choices of more marginalized women.
And yet, who am I to tell another woman that she isn’t empowered or that she isn’t really making her choices freely? As one of the founders of Slutwalk Toronto, who appeared in a debate to defend her reclamation of the word slut in 2010 said: “For me to call myself whatever language I want if I find it empowering, for somebody else to say that that’s not a right choice, when this is my choice, I find that problematic.”
If we consider the objections that have been heard by some women of colour—such as a statement by Black Women’s Blueprint that read, “We do not have the privilege or the space to call ourselves ‘slut’ without validating the already historically entrenched ideology and recurring messages about what and who the Black woman is”—the idea of reclaiming the word slut under the guise of choice may not be so radical after all.
For me, it comes down to whether one person’s choice to play with objectification may actually have an impact on other women. Feminism isn’t simply doing whatever we want, whenever we want, without considering how our actions impact others.
If choice is going to continue to be a valuable part of feminist discourse and a foundation for activism, we need to start thinking of it in collective, rather than individualistic, terms.
Individual autonomy and empowerment has been eagerly taken on by mainstream media as an all-too easy way to sell products. Choose to buy whatever you like—it’s empowering! Whether it’s a new vacuum cleaner or Virginia Slims cigarettes, it’s all a choice and, by extension, all feminist.
Sexist media has also caught on to this trend. This kind of language is used to justify the objectification of women’s bodies. Look at the way choice is presented in the show Girls Gone Wild, which has been discussed at length by American feminists Ariel Levy and Karen C. Pitcher. The messages of these videos are that a) this is fun, b) everyone is participating through their own free will and c) this kind of behaviour is inevitable.
One Girls Gone Wild participant is quoted in Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture saying, “It’s not like we’re creating this.... This is happening whether we’re here or not. Our founder was just smart enough to capitalize on it.” The message here is that if we make a decision to objectify ourselves, then we can’t be exploited because we made that choice.
We can make sexism fun if we choose it. In fact, we can make sexism disappear if we choose it.
Beyond simply choosing objectification, women are told that if they are compensated, sexism can be all the more empowering. Capitalism, partnered with media and neo-liberalism, tells us that all we need to do is to get paid in order for something to become a feminist act. Famous burlesque dancer Dita von Teese asked, “How can it be disempowering when I’m up there for seven minutes and I’ve just made $20,000? I feel pretty powerful.”
Not only does von Teese ignore the fact that most women who are paid to take their clothes off do not earn that amount of money, but there is also the fact that receiving payment does not negate objectification.
Undeniably, choice is fundamental to feminism. But that does not mean that every choice we make is a feminist one.
Choice, and the feminist context within which the slogan was born, has been de-politicized. Hey, we’re so free and empowered that we don’t even need the feminist movement anymore! See how dangerously easy it is to manipulate this rhetoric into something that actually limits choice for women?
I want real choices. I want to change the system within which those choices are made, not just use the language of choice to benefit or to comfort me. I want liberation from the forces that lead women into strip clubs, stilettos and Girls Gone Wild. I want collective empowerment, not temporary empowerment for only a few. I don’t want fake choices designed by the very mechanisms that oppressed women in the first place.
Meghan Murphy is a freelance writer, a host and producer of The F Word radio show, and the editor of www. feminisms.org. She has a master’s degree in women’s studies and lives in Vancouver.
To learn more about Herizons (I admit; the title of this mag, is ridiculous), to subscribe, or to make single magazine purchases, click here.
Choice Feminism by Meghan Murphy
HERIZONS SUMMER 2012 Vol. 26 No.1
HOW OUR RALLYING CRY GOT CO-OPTED (AND WHY WE NEED TO TAKE IT BACK)
Have you noticed that a lot of conversations about female empowerment today seem to be stuck in a discourse of choice that makes it difficult to challenge—well, anything at all?
Falling somewhere between victim feminism and the American dream, choice feminism is the new reigning queen of empowerment discourse. In contrast to political philosophies that explore the ways in which structural inequality limits freedom, choice feminism tells us that every individual is free to choose and that choice is empowering, no matter what the choice actually is.
The result is that the term choice is now employed in feminist debates about everything from the sex industry to marriage and makeup. Choice feminism dictates that any time a woman makes a choice it is an act of feminism.
Because a woman chooses to work in a strip club, for example, the factors that could affect her choice to do this work—which may include class, colonialism, education, abuse or the reality of living in a culture that objectifies women’s bodies—are neatly erased. No one is forcing her to be there, choice feminism says. If men will pay, why not take the cash?
The decision made by Slutwalk DC organizers to hold a fundraiser for an event last year in a strip club invoked this notion of choice feminism. Many feminists balked at the idea of using a strip club for a seemingly oppositional cause. However, the organizers responded in a statement on their Tumblr page stating, “This is a non-judgmental movement that embraces all choices a woman wishes to make.” Really? Since when is nonjudgmental the descriptor of a movement based on achieving collective freedom from oppression and exploitation? What if the choices being made perpetuate patriarchal ideas?
Part of the problem is that all of the well-intentioned talk about female empowerment in the third wave has left many of us fearful of falling into the much-criticized realm of “victim feminism.” Maybe, for some, the empowerment message of choice is simply a reflection of a sense of entitlement to all the world has to offer.
Perhaps, too, liberal feminism, commonly seen as being focused on individualism and on reform rather than on structural change, is as far as some are willing to go. Perhaps some think it is the best they can hope for.
Whatever its origins, choice feminism has co-opted feminist language in a way that takes the political out of the personal. It’s all about whatever makes you feel good—right now!
We need to reclaim the word choice. After all, it is one of the founding philosophical underpinnings of the modern feminist movement and the slogan in the fight for reproductive rights. Choice is the embodiment of the political demand for abortion. Historically, it was a liberating concept that represented women’s freedom and autonomy—not only in terms of their reproductive decisions, but also in more public aspects of life and society. Having the right to choose an abortion allows many women to feel they have a measure of control over their bodies and their lives.
This particular use of choice rhetoric was not without problems, however, since more privileged women always had greater access to reproductive choices compared to more marginalized women. Today, though, choice is no longer a rallying cry for change. Instead, choice has become a gag used to stifle debate.
Denise Thompson wrote about the problem of individualism as a foundation for feminist action in her book Radical Feminism Today. She argues that “if domination is desired, it cannot be challenged and opposed.” So, for example, if sex worker is framed as an individual choice, the system of prostitution can be dissociated from the idea of systematic or gendered oppression. If prostitution is only a personal life choice, it need not have anything to do with patriarchy. It becomes a private issue rather than a public one. And yet, as we all know, private choices don’t provide the basis for a movement. Viewing prostitution as a personal choice frames it as an empowerment exercise and, in so doing, erases the context of male domination and female exploitation in which it typically occurs.
The rise of choice feminism could either be interpreted as a significant weakness of the movement or simply as the effect of postmodernism on feminist theory and women’s studies, an aspect of feminist thought that is often criticized for being too vague and offering little in terms of action. Either way, choice feminism is not furthering debate, but stifling it.
Choice is far more complex than adherents of choice feminism make it out to be. For example, while our freedom to make choices enhances our ability to feel personally empowered, many of the choices we make do not help anyone but ourselves. One woman’s pole-dancing class might be another’s sole method of obtaining an income.
Heaping this decontextualized notion of choice upon the often very limited decisions made by women who are disadvantaged erases the structural inequities that feminism would normally set out to change. As feminists, we need to remember that, in this world, one person’s freedom often comes at the expense of another’s. This includes the West’s exploitation of developing countries as well as issues of class and privilege right here at home. The birth control pill, later hailed as a huge leap towards women’s liberation, was tested on under-priviledged women in Puerto Rico before it was allowed to be sold on the North American market. White middle-class women’s choices have always taken priority over the choices of more marginalized women.
And yet, who am I to tell another woman that she isn’t empowered or that she isn’t really making her choices freely? As one of the founders of Slutwalk Toronto, who appeared in a debate to defend her reclamation of the word slut in 2010 said: “For me to call myself whatever language I want if I find it empowering, for somebody else to say that that’s not a right choice, when this is my choice, I find that problematic.”
If we consider the objections that have been heard by some women of colour—such as a statement by Black Women’s Blueprint that read, “We do not have the privilege or the space to call ourselves ‘slut’ without validating the already historically entrenched ideology and recurring messages about what and who the Black woman is”—the idea of reclaiming the word slut under the guise of choice may not be so radical after all.
For me, it comes down to whether one person’s choice to play with objectification may actually have an impact on other women. Feminism isn’t simply doing whatever we want, whenever we want, without considering how our actions impact others.
If choice is going to continue to be a valuable part of feminist discourse and a foundation for activism, we need to start thinking of it in collective, rather than individualistic, terms.
Individual autonomy and empowerment has been eagerly taken on by mainstream media as an all-too easy way to sell products. Choose to buy whatever you like—it’s empowering! Whether it’s a new vacuum cleaner or Virginia Slims cigarettes, it’s all a choice and, by extension, all feminist.
Sexist media has also caught on to this trend. This kind of language is used to justify the objectification of women’s bodies. Look at the way choice is presented in the show Girls Gone Wild, which has been discussed at length by American feminists Ariel Levy and Karen C. Pitcher. The messages of these videos are that a) this is fun, b) everyone is participating through their own free will and c) this kind of behaviour is inevitable.
One Girls Gone Wild participant is quoted in Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture saying, “It’s not like we’re creating this.... This is happening whether we’re here or not. Our founder was just smart enough to capitalize on it.” The message here is that if we make a decision to objectify ourselves, then we can’t be exploited because we made that choice.
We can make sexism fun if we choose it. In fact, we can make sexism disappear if we choose it.
Beyond simply choosing objectification, women are told that if they are compensated, sexism can be all the more empowering. Capitalism, partnered with media and neo-liberalism, tells us that all we need to do is to get paid in order for something to become a feminist act. Famous burlesque dancer Dita von Teese asked, “How can it be disempowering when I’m up there for seven minutes and I’ve just made $20,000? I feel pretty powerful.”
Not only does von Teese ignore the fact that most women who are paid to take their clothes off do not earn that amount of money, but there is also the fact that receiving payment does not negate objectification.
Undeniably, choice is fundamental to feminism. But that does not mean that every choice we make is a feminist one.
Choice, and the feminist context within which the slogan was born, has been de-politicized. Hey, we’re so free and empowered that we don’t even need the feminist movement anymore! See how dangerously easy it is to manipulate this rhetoric into something that actually limits choice for women?
I want real choices. I want to change the system within which those choices are made, not just use the language of choice to benefit or to comfort me. I want liberation from the forces that lead women into strip clubs, stilettos and Girls Gone Wild. I want collective empowerment, not temporary empowerment for only a few. I don’t want fake choices designed by the very mechanisms that oppressed women in the first place.
Meghan Murphy is a freelance writer, a host and producer of The F Word radio show, and the editor of www. feminisms.org. She has a master’s degree in women’s studies and lives in Vancouver.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Dove Beauty Sketches
Dove Real Beauty Sketches
Published on Apr 14, 2013
Join the conversation at: #WeAreBeautiful
Watch the whole experience at: http://dove.com/realbeautysketches
Women are their own worst beauty critics. Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. At Dove, we are committed to creating a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety. So, we decided to conduct a compelling social experiment that explores how women view their own beauty in contrast to what others see.
And don't forget: YOU are more beautiful than you think!
Watch the whole experience at: http://dove.com/realbeautysketches
Women are their own worst beauty critics. Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. At Dove, we are committed to creating a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety. So, we decided to conduct a compelling social experiment that explores how women view their own beauty in contrast to what others see.
And don't forget: YOU are more beautiful than you think!
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