Miss Representation (Documentary Trailer)

I Wish They'd "Take It All Off" the Internet

I found this gem whilst randomly site-surfing the other day. The composition was just too perfect; I had to take a screen-shot. I like to call it: "The Left is What I Saw, The Right is What I Thought." I'm just so tired of exploitative internet ads. It doesn't matter if you're doing research for a paper or looking up lyrics to a Wiggles song — you can't escape the misogyny!

77% of Anti-Abortion Leaders

Speaks for itself, eh?

Do women have to be naked to get into U.S. museums?

Want to know more about the Guerrilla Girls?

• Guerrilla Girls Official Website
• Guerrilla Girls on Wikipedia
• Guerilla Girls on Tour

Random Thoughts for a Friday Afternoon: Abortion, Diets, and Krispy Kreme Donuts

There have only been about two days in the past few weeks where I actually got some free time, so while I regret not writing for a while, I don't blame myself. After all, it's hard to write anything interesting (let alone coherent) when your eyes are about to fall out of your head from exhaustion. But anyway, you know when you get into one of those crazy "thinking" moods? I've been like that a lot lately, just thinking, thinking, thinking. Here are my random thoughts for a Friday afternoon:

Abortion. I realized the other day in an epiphany-kind-of-way what being pro-choice is really about. People make pro-choicers out to be inhuman baby-killers (and I'll admit, I would never want that stereotype on my head), but it's a lie. When a woman has an abortion it's not as if she just bops out of the clinic whistling "Singing In the Rain." Having an abortion would tear anybody up inside.

Pro-choicers don't celebrate the act of ending a baby's life, but they do respect women enough to allow them to make their own decisions about their own bodies. That's what we're celebrating: the fact that we are intelligent creatures capable of intelligent, rational thoughts. Why should I let some governor in [insert state here] dictate what I can and cannot do with my body?

I'm not sure if the statistic "77% of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never be pregnant" is true, but if it is, dang. How can they make decisions about something they will never, ever experience for themselves?

Maybe if we did more to make abortions unnecessary in this country - like amp up sex education in schools; make contraception more accessible to at-risk couples; and make it easier for single, pregnant women to receive report (financial and emotional) - women wouldn't have to suffer so much.

Overall? Being pro-choice doesn't mean that you're anti-life.

Diets. I haven't really blogged about my weight loss struggles before, but I'm horrified to admit that I've gained back nearly three-fourths of the weight I spent nearly a year losing. I let stress and school get the better of me, and used that as a (lame) excuse to drown my sorrows in Oreos and cheesy enchiladas. Well, I hopped back on the weight loss bandwagon two days ago, and I'm feeling a load better. I'm approaching things differently this time, and believe it or not it's all because of what I read in a random Yahoo! article.

The article said that when women try to lose weight, we're way too hard on ourselves. Instead of "Oh wow, I lost a pound!" we tend to say "Aww man, I only lost a pound?"

Well, no more.

I'm going to start celebrating little successes. If I get it in my head that this is a short-term "diet," I'm going to crash and burn. It's way less pressure to think of this as a lifestyle change, something I can stick to from now on. I'm going to make good choices and drink lots of water, of course, but if we're having pizza one night - dammit, I'm having pizza.

If you want to get healthy and start tracking your food, check out Livestrong.com. Sign up to use one of its features called The Daily Plate - it's great!

For an A&F clothing ad,
something invariably seems
to be missing.

Operation: Anti-Discrimination. Okay, this doesn't have a ton to do with Krispy Kreme donuts (though my group and I will be enjoying them on the day of our "operation"). What is this "operation," you say? On December 18th the girls from Real Beauty Revolution and I will be going under-cover at a nearby mall as different stereotypes to see how people treat us. I'm completely stoked because I'll finally be facing my demon: Hollister.

Whenever my brother and I walk past Hollister we plug our noses and make "snooty" comments. I absolutely abhor the store.

As an overweight woman I'm really interested to see how they react to me, if at all. I'm going to wear sweatpants, a sweatshirt of some sort (I've got a lovely one with my brother's face on it!), a cheap-looking bag, and no makeup. I might pretend that I've never been in the store before, and innocently ask if they have my size...

A part of me hopes we won't experience discrimination in any of the stores we target, but a larger part - a biased, immature part - wants to bust some suckers.

Am I biased against stores that routinely judge and treat customers like crap (i.e. Hollister, A&F, Nordstrom)? Yes.

But that'll make the results that much more interesting when I post them on the 18th!

Okay, beer companies, enough is enough . . .

I must begin by saying that this is one of the most horrific ads I've seen in my entire life, and I spend a great deal of time searching for sexist and otherwise degrading ads to show at my women's rights club Real Beauty Revolution. The purpose of this ad, made clear by the (tiny) bottle in the lower right-hand corner, is to sell Coopers Beer. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that beer will always sell, regardless of whether or not it's heavily advertised, so this ad causes one to wonder how the Coopers Beer company can get away with printing something so blatantly disrespectful towards women. Most notably: overweight women.

If you haven't quite grasped the ad's concept (as it took me a minute to understand the first time I laid eyes on it), the miniscule caption in the lower corner reads: "Only 29% alcohol." In the bulk of the ad we see a woman, but not really; she's more of a hybrid, a ridiculous photo-shopped illusion of a woman. Her head is that of a young blonde (no doubt the representation of "beauty" here) and the rest is the body of a larger woman. Get it? 29% alcohol, 29% "hot chick"? This can also be read as: "when the women in your life aren't attractive enough, just take a swig of Coopers Beer and you'll be seeing [insert Hollywood actress here] in no time!

Another ridiculous ad for
Coopers Beer. The message
here?"Some women are so
unattractive, only balloon-ish
breasts would save them."
*Puke*

This ad is clearly aimed at men, as I don't know what woman could stand looking at it for more than five seconds without puking. Whoever created this ad obviously has no regard for the plight many women go through about their bodies, and is exploiting a barbaric stereotype that bigger women are "ugly" to get a cheap laugh. I hope you don't think biases are clouding my judgment when I say whoever created this ad is immature, malicious, and downright cruel.

Ads that aim to sell a product are usually predictable: their main message (argument) is to sell their product, and everything else is subtle, subliminal, or an afterthought. This ad, however, seems to be flip-flopped in that it's prominent, in-your-face message is "fat women are unattractive." Only after the audience gathers that fact do they realize the ad is for beer (the product is shoved into a lowly corner, after all). This is in incredibly bad taste, and just one of countless reminders that women are stigmatized each and every day for the way they look. It's bad enough that women are subjected to constant criticism from diet pill companies and late-night ads for exercise equipment like the Ab Circle Pro ("Not only will your Ab Circle Pro help you Lose Your Love Handles, it will help you workout and slim down your buns, hips, and thighs, too!"), but when this same sense of body-shaming is carried over to unrelated products like beer - it makes me wonder when people will finally step up and say enough is enough.

 If you'd like to unleash your rage on the Coopers Beer company, you can find their contact information here.

Sexism and Other Garbage in Our Media

Have you ever had a love-hate relationship with something? Like chocolate. I mean, one minute you love it more than life itself (I've been known to eat a s'more in my day), but the next minute you're staring into the bathroom mirror, pinching and pulling your thighs, and wondering why you ever got mixed up with that crap in the first place. That pretty much sums up my love-hate relationship with the media, minus the pinching and pulling. One minute I'll be chuckling at a Skittles commercial, but the next minute I'll go on a rampage because some idiotic company felt the need to bash, stereotype, or otherwise degrade women to sell their products.

I didn't used to be so critical, but once I actually started paying attention to what I was watching and reading I realized how much garbage we're subjected to in a day - it's on TV, in newspapers, magazines, billboards, everywhere! We can't escape it!

I've been collecting sexist ads on the internet for a while now, and while some are only mildly sexist, others are oh-my-gosh-I-can't-believe-they-did-that-who's-skull-can-I-bash-in sexist. And there have been some common themes along the way:

1. "Oh, you're a woman? You must be [insert stereotype here]."

Translation: Women only serve two purposes. I'm sure you can guess what they are.

It just amazes me that companies can get away with printing such blatantly-sexist advertisements, and ads that promote ridiculous stereotypes about women are more common than I first realized. Women are frequently typecast as shoppers, pink-lovers, gold-diggers, scaredy-cats, sexual objects, prostitutes, nagging mothers, air-heads. . . it never ends! I don't know about you, but I am neither a shopper, pink-lover, gold-digger, scaredy-cat, sexual object, prostitute, nor nagging mother. And heaven forbid you call me an airhead. Why do advertisers think it's okay to paint women in this light?

Here are some gender-related videos:

Analysis of Gender in Media
Gender Stereotypes in Media
Gender Stereotyping of Women in the Media

2. "Are women even human? Nah, they're just objects."

Translation: Keep the bag, throw away the woman.

As discussed in the documentary Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising's Image of Women, women are constantly turned into objects, sometimes even becoming part of the product that's being sold. Some might justify this by saying women's bodies are "beautiful works of art." Well yeah, we're awesome. But we're not inanimate things that can be used like a piece of toilet paper. As the documentary explains (please watch it), when women are portrayed as less than human people can use that as an excuse to justify violence against them. After all, is it easier to mistreat something you value (i.e. like a human being), or something that is little more than a piece of meat or, in the case of this advertisement, garbage?

3. "Make that sexual objects."


Translation: Women are valued for their bodies, not their intelligence, personalities, etc.

First off, how funny (i.e. ridiculous) is it that an ad for wakeboards stuffs their product into a teeny-weeny corner, while the forefront is dominated by irrelevant, bikini-clad women? Does this tactic really work with its intended audience, which we can all assume to be men? Do they really see this as and think "ooh, women, I must buy a wakeboard"? That's pretty insulting to their intelligence, isn't it? But if I can get to my main rant, thank you, this ad is incredibly degrading. By covering up the women's faces (but leaving their bodies exposed) we get the message that they are not people to be valued for their intelligence, humor, personalities, or anything that makes them inherently likeable or unique, they're valued for their bodies and sexuality. Not only do the bags make these women appear as if they're less than human, they transform them into sexual objects. Horrifying.


4. "This is what beauty really looks like."


Translation: If you're with an ugly woman like this, who could blame you if you cheated with a gorgeous woman like this?

I absolutely deplore ads that try to impose their idea of beauty on us. The message "sometimes ya gotta cheat" is sickening enough (are they really trying to promote adultery?), but I just hate the fact that they're taking it upon themselves to judge two women purely by their looks. This woman is wrinkly, old, and therefore ugly; this woman is skinny, busty, and therefore beautiful. There's no mention of internal qualities; after all, who needs to be smart or compassionate when they've got jugs? These ads drive women crazy because they feel insurmountable pressure to look more like the "mistress" and less like the "wife." These ads might also hurt our relationships with men, because one day we're lounging around in our grungy pajamas and they're thinking "hey, why don't you look like this?"


5. "Violence? Eh, it's no big deal."


Translation: I don't even know what they were trying to go for.

This ad is frivolous, meaningless. Violence for the sake of violence. I have absolutely no clue how this would make people want to buy ties (unless they're in the mafia). Just look at the sickening expression on the man's face. "Yeah, look what I did." He looks amused, clutching the naked dead woman by the throat, blood dripping down the hood of the car. This ad pretty much renders my brain numb. I don't know how to describe it, how to accurately describe my rage, my disgust. How can they . . . Why would they . . . This is pure horror. They're glorifying violence against women to sell their crappy little ties - and if the public thinks this is okay, we're all in trouble. I beg you: if you ever see an ad as horrific as this, please, please, please make some phone calls, write some letters, call the president, do whatever you have to do to get it destroyed.

Experimentations of a Teenage Feminist: Promotional Video

Here's the promotional video I made for this blog. (Don't laugh . . .)