FINALLY! Ricky Martin came out of the proverbial closet!! I don’t think that many of us were unaware of what he calls “his truth.” I’m not really a fan of his – nor was I back in the “La Vida Loca” days, but, his slightly tardy boldness is worth a congratulatory note! In the post on his website he describes being discouraged by those he loves from coming out. At the time, he was faced with the possible ramification of ruining his career and also being told that it wasn’t “worth it,” so he kept his sexual identity private.
In light of his comments, I was reminded of a recent article in the LA Weekly describing the trials of homosexuality in Hollywood. Not only are the stereotypes profuse and often disturbing – that is when we actually see homosexual characters in Hollywood – but the entertainers actually living the reality are encouraged…nay coerced by the likes of Howard Bragman and Todd Holland into keeping their sexual identity private. It doesn’t help that these men are homosexual (Holland is actually an “activist”), but that they are not themselves closeted seems to make their bad advice more offensive to me.
So, good for you Ricky! Congratulations! Fans, non-fans, and the community at large are proud of you! You will find more acceptance here than you may have expected! Kudos
Life and Style and Us Magazine tapped into the stereotypical catty, bitchy, mean girl archetype on this week’s covers (don’t get me started on Kourtney Kardashian’s post-baby bikini body given my recent post and Kourtney’s outrage at being photoshopped).
Vienna slams Ali! DWTS (Dancing with the Stars) drama! Pam hates Kate. DWTS feuding already!
It’s a standard assumption and expectation that all girls and women are never really friends with another girl or woman, at best we’re “frenemies.” Afterall, all girls and women are jealous, vindictive, competitive bitches. Don’t believe me? See my recent post, She’s Probably a Bitch.
The list of products that pigeonhole girls in the clothes and makeup category goes on and on. Disney sells pink vanity tables for girls as young as 3, for example, and the European retailer Primark stocks a T-shirt in a 2-year-old size that’s emblazoned with the motto “S is for Super, Shopaholic, Soon-to-be-Supermodel.” Even old classics now offer girls’ versions, such as an all-pink Monopoly game in which the houses and hotels have been replaced by boutiques and malls, and a “Designer’s Edition” Scrabble that has letters on the front of the box spelling out fashion. It wasn’t always this way. A couple of decades ago, children’s clothing mostly came in primary colors and princesses were confined to the occasional film or Halloween costume. But as marketing to children has burgeoned into a multibillion-dollar industry, and our consumerist ethos has saddled kids with mountains of stuff, the gender divide has grown wider.
There are serious ramifications to all this marketing, the Moores say. The tidal wave of pink toys and clothes suggests there’s only one way to be a girl — pretty, princessy and fashion-minded. And this segues disturbingly quickly into often sexualized images of tween girls a few years older, says Lyn Mikel Brown, an education professor at Colby College in Maine and co-author of the book Packaging Girlhood. The not-so-subtle pressures of this marketing can damage self-esteem and feed worries about body image and appearance later in life, the sisters say. They also link it to a celebrity-obsessed culture that undermines adult women by glorifying glamour figures like Paris Hilton while neglecting those women engaged in more serious pursuits.
The Jezebel article questions the long-term effects of these toys that promote what Lynn Peril terms “pink think.“
Yet here we are, studiously deployed in the combat of such messages to girls and women. We somehow emerged intact — not immune to internalized sexism, of course, but able to think clearly and beyond it. Was my love of Perfect Wedding a form of Stockholm Syndrome, its effective antidote parents who expected me to be more than a future wife and an internship at Ms.? Or was it just a really, evilly fun game and not much more?
To answer the question posed above, I say no. My students analyze children’s toys and clothing utilizing a critical gendered lens every semester (in fact, I graded this semester’s papers this afternoon). In many ways, toys created and marketed to children today are more sexist and confining than those from my childhood. To say that the writers at a critical and conscious blog emerged unscathed from the messages promoting beauty and domesticity as the sources of happiness for girls and women is not a conclusion that is representative of the mass population. Those Jezebel writers are sassy, smart and conscious. They can sniff out things like misogyny, sexism and sexist stereotypes quickly and easily.
Like the writers at Jezebel, I consider myself conscious and equipped with the ability to detect double-standards, sexist stereotypes and gender expectations. And, like the writers and individuals commenting at Jezebel, I liked my girl toys. I owned over 40 Barbies, the vacation home and the 3-story townhouse with elevator. I had the pink corvette and bags full of clothes and accessories. I loved grooming and dressing my Barbies, getting them ready for parties and dates (and engaging them in naughty behavior with Ken). Given a choice, I would have played with and had my Barbies proudly on display well into my teens. My mother eventually convinced me that it was time to put them away when I got my first boyfriend at 14.
Clearly, I loved Barbie and all the pink paraphernalia associated with Barbie. But I also remember the scale that was perpetually fixed on 110 pounds. 110. The last time I weighed 110 was when I was 5′ 2″ and in 6th grade. But that number, Barbie’s impossible measurements and “perfect” body were stuck in my mind as examples of what a woman should weigh and look like. I am not blaming Barbie and her pink scale as the sole variables that impacted my distorted and negative body image through most of my life. But I do recognize Barbie as one toy and one aspect of gender socialization that is part of a larger cultural onslaught (see here and here) that encourages girls and women to focus on beauty and relationships (the former as a way to nab the latter).
I agree with Irin Carmon’s statement “We somehow emerged intact — not immune to internalized sexism, of course, but able to think clearly and beyond it” only because I spent years deconstructing and decoding the messages reinforcing these gendered themes my entire life. I don’t blame my toys alone and I don’t pretend that these toys didn’t bring me hours of immense satisfaction and fun. But I also don’t discount these toys as agents of gender socialization that helped frame my expectations of my self, my place in the world, my relationships and possibilities. I recognize my ability to transcend these messages and “think clearly and beyond” them thanks to Sociology and Women’s Studies courses and becoming media literate.
Check out David M. Dismore’spost at Ms.blog to view the collection of vintage postcards that women fighting for suffrage used to get the word out and help cinch voting rights. They’re amazing. Also, check out Dismore’s website: Feminism 101.
CNN reported on the latest [apparently, not the latest: see comment below] atrocious video game that allows the player to rape a woman over and over again while choosing a variety of methods to initiate the assault.
That’s right.
RapeLay, a video game that has gone viral since people, especially women’s rights groups, have reacted in outrage (and rightly so). Rapelay, a video game that, as CNN reports, makes Grand Theft Auto (the game that stirred up a firestorm of criticism upon its release in 2008) appear as harmless and “clean as Pac-man.”
Given the statistics on domestic violence, assault, and rape, it is difficult for me to conceptualize this video game as a “game.” Our media landscape is (and has been) populated with endless streams of images and messages glorifying, eroticizing and diminishing the serious nature of violence against women, an issue that some have called a hidden pandemic and others have labeled an epidemic of global proportions.
Viewing repetitive and stable images decreases our sensitivity to an issue, it normalizes the images and themes contained therein. Violence against women is an issue that we, as a culture, are already desensitized to on many levels. The systematic objectification and dismemberment of women (see Jean Kilbourne‘s film Killing Us Softly 3 and read her book, Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel) is rampant in and a staple fixture of our mediated culture, reinforcing images of aggression and violence against women as normative and unremarkable.
“Games” that continue to use images of gratuitous and unapologetic violence as a source of “entertainment” frighten me because the inevitable results are horrifying. We know that dating violence among young people is increasing. We also know that the level of mediation and amount of time young people are exposed to messages constructed by the mass media, including video game makers, is increasing (there are even treatment programs for young people addicted to video games). Taking these variables into consideration and recognizing the correlation between the level of mediation and one’s attitudes, expectations and behaviors creates a dismal picture for girls and women (and this isn’t even taking the construction of gender and the corresponding expectation of violent masculinity and submissive femininity as normative into consideration).
Given that, I think it is safe to say that rape, virtual or real, is never simply a game, at least not for the victims of that violence, virtual or real, and its social, physical and emotional consequences. In the end, we’re all negatively effected by a culture that makes violence against *anyone* a game.
Twitter is an excellent forum for disseminating and sharing information. It’s also a good place for constructive dialogue and debates to begin. Demi’s critique of Kim Kardashian’s causal reference to “big pimpin’” is evidence of that.
In the wake of the media coverage of this celebrity “feud,” Rachel Lloyddigs deeper. Her post (minus the original twitter exchange) follows below (originally posted at HufPo and crossposted at Ms. Magazine’s FB page and now crossposted here).
There’s been lots of coverage in the last 24 hours on the Twitter ‘feud’ between Demi Moore and Kim Kardashian. Yet the glaring omission from all the articles, blogs and commentary is any real analysis of Demi’s point – that we glamorize and glorify pimp culture, use terminology that seems to legitimize the practice, and in doing so ignore the fact that pimps are modern-day slave-owners. (more…)
Jeannette Rankin and Kamala Lopez are inspirational role models for all of us. Please read the full article at Women’s Media Center.
Left: Kamala Lopez discussing her film at WAM! LA On Thursday, March 25, 2010 at Santa Monica College Right: Presenter Carla Ohrendorff and Kamala Lopez at WAM! LA Thursday, March 25, 2010.
Anita Sarkeesian rocked WAM! LA Thursday night. We can’t wait for her to return to LA. Check out her incredible playlist. Originally posted at Feminist Frequency, March 26, 2010. Cross-posted with permission.
I had such a fantastic time presenting at Women, Action and Media (WAM) in LA on March 25th, 2010. I curated a show of online videos including remixes, vlogs, vids and short documentaries made by women. Staying true with WAM’s mission, these videos represent women taking action through media to talk about issues important to their lives and talking back to the media that so often misrepresents, stereotypes and victimizes us.
As Thursday’s presenter Carla Ohrendorff said, “the bad-assery” was tangible. WAM! Los Angeles brought together media makers, activists, and feminists for 2 days of films, video remix, critical analysis, and collaboration.
Blogging/videoblogging, tweeting, and lecturing are powerful tools that allow the feminist movement’s momentum to continue, connecting and expanding the community of activists. But, nothing beats the opportunity to get a bunch of fabulous people together providing the time and space to teach, learn and inspire, leaving us all feeling connected to something larger than ourselves and our immediate peer group. And that’s what WAM! allowed us to do.
After 2 days of events that included the opportunity to socialize, laugh and share ideas for future projects over the communal potluck at Friday night’s movie mixer, I felt high. The collective spirit was palpable and energizing. And while we were “waming” it in Los Angeles, feminist media activists were waming it in Boston, Chicago, New York, D.C., and San Antonio. Knowing that women and men were taking part in similar events, tapping into and invoking the “bad-assery” in their respective communities, not only connected me to the larger national collective but to the spirit of consciousness-raising groups of the second wave of feminism that were integral in creating social and political change.
Like most, I am prone to moments of doubt and self-sabotage (do I have anything to say? does this make a difference?), but the solidarity evident last week in Los Angeles and knowing there other cites across the United States were drumming up the same collective momentum in the same way second-wavers did in CR groups is more than enough to shake off the self-doubt and move forward.
The revolution will be televised by people like me and people like you (thanks to Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency who ended her segment on Thursday with the following clip.)
