February 25, 2010

Another Facebook Gem….

In line with my previous post about facebook groups, this one popped up recently: “Reasons when it is acceptable to punch a woman in the face.”

Here is their list:

1. talking too much
2. disagreeing with anything you say
3. burning your food
4. not washing up
5. being on her period
6. being on her period and still coming to see you
7. talking bout other guys….even her dad
8. taking off her make up
9. leaving the kitchen
10. leaving the bedroom
11. refusing a threesome
12. telling you to stop pushing their head down… when
they give you head
13. not knowing the offside rule
14. not knowing the offside rule after being told too many
times
15.not allowing you to have sex with their mum/sister
16. killing banter
17. out drinking you
18. making stupid baby noises
19. being on either team Jacob or team Edward
20. refusing anal
21. breathing
22. when your football team looses
23. wanting attention during a cod session
24. asking you to make her a cup of tea
25. thinking their in control of the relationship
26. when ur angry and need something to hit
27. when you wanna try out your new kung fu move
28. wearing clothes indoors
29. asking you to go down on her
30. when they fish for compliments
31. when they make you watch chick flicks
32. expecting to get paid for
33. trying to help make this list (foook u becky)
34. having an opinion
35. crying for no fucking reason
36. weighing more than you do
37. calling you a woman/pussy
38. giving you a stupid nickname
39. forgetting to shave
40. not swallowing
41.having a 4 finger bucket
42. taking more than 20 minutes deciding what to wear
43. being taller than you
44. bitching about people you dont even know
45. looking at you funny
46. complaining that she’s cold…. wear a hoodie bitch
47. being a feminist
48. asking you to finish her off once ur finished..
49. calling the police when you hit her…bitch should learn
50. for being a woman..
51. saying they love you
52. when she is in range
53. When she reads this and wont have sex with you for
laughin
54. When she asks to be and admin
55. bitching about facebook groups…. get back in the
kitchen
56. when you got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t 1
57. Whenever she talks without being questioned
58. when she sends you a friend request…. i don’t want to be your friend, but you can go make me a sandwich 😛

ONLY REASON TO NOT HIT A WOMAN IN THE FACE…
1. when she’s pregnant…..punch her in the stomach

How about #33?! Becky, I would really like to give you some relationship advice!

I’ve actually heard men say things like, “Well, if she hits me first then she wants to be treated like a man.” Or, “She just wouldn’t stop antagonizing me.”  We saw a very good example last year when Rihanna became the poster girl for domestic abuse. Unfortunately, her celebrity didn’t lend a hand to constructive and progressive movement on domestic abuse which is the leading cause of physical injury to American women between 15 and 44! Most of the media coverage consisted of talking heads insisting on giving Chris Brown a break and lengthy argument about whether or not she provoked him. Provocation or not domestic abuse is never excusable because he is (a) male (b) provoked (c) inebriated or (d) famous. When we continually normalize and excuse domestic violence it makes people like the guy who created this facebook page (who I’d venture a guess may be a fan of Chris Browns) think that it’s ok and humorous to abuse and degrade their partners.

Additionally, men who do not participate in this kind of behavior have to step up and become role models for the young men who only have the Chris Brown’s and Howard Stern’s to look up to. Jackson Katz stands as a leader in advocating that domestic abuse is not a woman’s issue (for older posts including Katz, click here and here). If 4 million women are abused per year then the chances that it will affect someone you know are very high. The chances that your girlfriend or your sister or your mother has been abused are very high; that isn’t a woman’s problem…..that’s a national crisis.

February 17, 2010

Courtesy of Facebook: "Killing your hooker so you don't have to pay her"

Filed under: Gender,Sexuality,Violence — Tags: , , , , — Lani @ 4:51 pm

I understand that facebook groups are mostly just a joke as is the actual act of joining one. Nothing more than a way to send a message. For example I recently joined the group “I don’t care about your farm or your fish or your mafia. So, stop asking.” Of course, I only joined hoping that a select few would stop inviting me their freaking farms! I understand it’s all in jest.

But what about this one: “Killing your hooker so you don’t have to pay her“? My mouth dropped open when I saw this joke posted on their page: Q. Whats the difference between an onion and a hooker? A. You don’t cry when you are chopping up hookers. Or how about this one: Q. What’s the difference between a lamborghini and a pile of dead hookers? A. I don’t have a lamborghini in my garage.

At some point gender-based violence has to stop being a source of amusement. It breeds action - and no matter how funny the joke or the group – those actions are not funny.

Click here for Feministe’s discussion of the same group!

blog-pic

April 17, 2009

The mythical norm on Facebook: a white male

Filed under: Gender,Media — Tags: , , , , , , — Melanie @ 12:45 pm

Here’s an intersting post on Feministing about Facebook’s avatar, the generic representation of its users: a white male.

January 6, 2009

Your breasts are never your own

In light of the recent facebook controversy regarding photographs of breast feeding, I wanted to post an article from 2006.

NEW YORK – “I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine,” one person wrote. “I immediately turned the magazine face down,” wrote another. “Gross,” said a third.

These readers weren’t complaining about a sexually explicit cover, but rather one of a baby nursing, on a wholesome parenting magazine — yet another sign that Americans are squeamish over the sight of a nursing breast, even as breast-feeding itself gains greater support from the government and medical community.

Babytalk is a free magazine whose readership is overwhelmingly mothers of babies. Yet in a poll of more than 4,000 readers, a quarter of responses to the cover were negative, calling the photo — a baby and part of a woman’s breast, in profile — inappropriate.

One mother who didn’t like the cover explains she was concerned about her 13-year-old son seeing it.

“I shredded it,” said Gayle Ash, of Belton, Texas, in a telephone interview. “A breast is a breast — it’s a sexual thing. He didn’t need to see that.”

It’s the same reason that Ash, 41, who nursed all three of her children, is cautious about breast-feeding in public — a subject of enormous debate among women, which has even spawned a new term: “lactivists,” meaning those who advocate for a woman’s right to nurse wherever she needs to.

“I’m totally supportive of it — I just don’t like the flashing,” she says. “I don’t want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn’t want to see.”

Another mother, Kelly Wheatley, wrote Babytalk to applaud the cover, precisely because, she says, it helps educate people that breasts are more than sex objects. And yet Wheatley, 40, who’s still nursing her 3-year-old daughter, rarely breast-feeds in public, partly because it’s more comfortable in the car, and partly because her husband is uncomfortable with other men seeing her breast.

“Men are very visual,” says Wheatley, 40, of Amarillo, Texas. “When they see a woman’s breast, they see a breast — regardless of what it’s being used for.”

Babytalk editor Susan Kane says the mixed response to the cover clearly echoes the larger debate over breast-feeding in public. “There’s a huge Puritanical streak in Americans,” she says, “and there’s a squeamishness about seeing a body part — even part of a body part.”

The facebook ban isn’t as surprising as the controversy ignited by this 2006 cover of a parenting magazine.

It’s always amusing to hear people cite the “protection” of children and teenagers as a defense for banning images and actual breastfeeding.  I see more breast walking down the street, at a club, at the beach or in the media than I ever see on nursing mothers.

Lisa Latham, in Bitchfest, writes a great article (Double Life: Everyone Wants to See Your Breasts-Until Your Baby Needs Them) on the disjuncture and conflict between the sexual and “working” breast, the public and private breast.

In the end, whether the breast is feeding a baby, as nature intended, or pushed up in a bra, the female body has been and is concerned public domain.