Once in a while I catch a glimpse of someone else's Facebook News Feed page and I am always surprised to see the content. Based on the fact that I regularly write about social justice issues on this blog it won't come as a surprise that I use Facebook to gather and disseminate politically relevant stories and information. Thus, my News Feed is full of political links. I easily forget that the internet experiences of other people are often very different from my own. The daily images and info that people find in their Facebook account will reflect their interests and activities and those of their network - which may not include feminist theory, political activism and world news.
Despite knowing that Facebook was tailoring its content to the individuals, I assumed that to some extent this practice was limited to advertising and news preferences. A Democracy Now interview with Eli Pariser about his new book, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You, disrupted my view of how individual internet experiences differ. It also caused me to question how useful my attempts to "protect" myself were. I use an advertisement blocking application which helps filter out most of the crap companies are trying to use to sell things to me.
But I hadn't been aware of the extent of the internet filters and the virtual bubble that I could be in. After watching the interview with Pariser, I reflected on a recent experience doing research for this blog. I was trying to search for information on climate change deniers for a post and my Google searches were fruitless. Why wasn't I able to find information that conflicted with my beliefs? Google was likely trying to appease me and give me what I wanted to see.
Here is a TED Talk given by Pariser:
Pariser gives the example of doing a Google search with keywords such as "Egypt" and the different results one might get. On the Filter Bubble website, they also offer several examples. I decided to try this out myself:
This example leads me to why I think the filter bubble is dangerous for social justice oriented people and the people that tag their tweets with #p2 and #p2ca. The filter bubble is very divisive and results in people only accessing information that fits with their worldview. Without an understanding of what diverse groups of people are posting, tweeting, and blogging about, we will have a more difficult time communicating, cooperating and collaborating. And ultimately, I think that working together is the only thing that will move people forward.
Whether or not you are concerned about the social implications of the filter bubble, you are probably worried about how it might affect you personally. Well, you can "pop your filter bubble" using the clear instructions list 10 Things You Can Do from The Filter Bubble website.
Finally, take a moment to think: How did you get to this website? Let me know in the comments!
There are many words I consider part of my identity, including feminist. It is a very loaded term. Since I was a young girl I knew that I was all for equal rights, but I shied away from being called a feminist, as many girls do, because of the stereotypes associated with the word. In this post I'm going to write about being called a feminist, denying you're a feminist, and introduce the website Not Feminist, eh?
Only in university did I embrace the term feminism (with its multiple and fluid definitions). In a Media and Feminist Studies course we started the semester with a whirlwind reading of Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media by Susan Douglas. The whole book is a great read and especially relevant to anyone who was a girl in Canada or the US anytime in the second half of the 20th century.
Chapter 12, titled "I’m not a Feminist, but…", resonated with me because only a couple of years before reading this I was definitely making statements about equality that began with that expression. The chapter discusses why women in younger generations have tended to distance themselves from the term. Often, women don't understand its meaning or don't want to be labelled as a feminist because of the negative connotations and the stereotypes associated with feminism. In class we addressed media representations of feminism as everything from dangerous to dead, and the myths that feminism is no longer needed, either because of its failure or because of its success.
Post-feminist theories help us understand how feminism is perceived in the Global North. In her book Gender and the Media, Rosalind Gill writes:
I want to argue that postfeminism [sic] is best understood not as an epistemological perspective, nor as a historical shift, and not (simply) as a backlash, in which its meanings are pre-specified. Rather, postfeminism should be conceived of as a sensibility, and postfeminist media culture should be our critical object the phenomenon which analysts must inquire into and interrogate. This approach does not require a static notion of authentic feminism as a comparison point, but instead is informed by postmodernist and constructionist perspectives and seeks to examine what is distinctive about contemporary articulations of gender in the media (254-255)
Post-feminism should be conceived as a sensibility… Today’s media culture has a distinctive postfeminist sensibility organized around choice, empowerment, self-surveillance, and sexual difference, and articulated in an ironic and knowing register in which feminism is simultaneously taken for granted and repudiated (271).
Post-feminism positively draws on and invokes feminism as that which can be taken into account, to suggest that equality is achieved, in order to install a whole repertoire of new meanings which emphasize that it is no longer needed, it is a spent force (215).
A couple of weeks ago I came across the website www.notracistbut.com, a recent project that makes racism more visible and calls into question whether we live in a post-racial society. www.whitewhine.com, another site with a somewhat problematic name, but similar purpose, calls attention to so-called “first world problems” – essentially problems that aren’t serious and generally only afflict affluent people in the Global North.
I read about the source of Not Racist, But… content and discovered OpenBook. Curious, I typed “feminism,” “feminists,” and “not feminist but” into the search engine, and Not Feminist, eh? was born.
The website highlights status updates that use “I’m not a feminist, but” to express a feminist perspective while avoiding the feminist label. It also compiles statements that express negative sentiments towards feminism, blame feminists for specific or general problems in the world, or perpetuate stereotypes about feminists.
Stereotypes about feminists are problematic because they erase the differences of a diverse group of women. Furthermore, it's problematic to view all of these stereotypes as negative – is being masculine, pro-choice, or not shaving your legs a bad thing? No, of course not. So let's just keep that in mind.
There is a joke about feminists changing light bulbs that apparently went viral recently. The punch line varies but mostly claims that feminists “can’t change anything.”
This "answer" intrigues me because it hints that feminism is indeed relevant and needed, but that there is resistance to equality and change, and therefore attempts to ridicule feminists for (and discourage them from) trying to change the status quo. Post-feminism, anyone?
This is what one might conclude based on most representations in Western media that involve any combination of men, women, and meat. Men typically exhibit manliness through the consumption of meat, women and displays of physical strength. Women are instructed to make themselves appealing and available for consumption, whether visually or physically. Meat is often associated with wealth and violence; one must have more resources to purchase a steak instead of beans, and someone must kill an animal for that steak to end up on a plate. The images below offer some examples:
Text at bottom reads:
RED MEAT: We were meant to eat it
Herbivores/Vegetarians/Vegans, or simply those who restrict their meat consumption, are often trivialized and mocked as hippies or tree-huggers, presented as weak (regardless of gender), or ignored and merely tolerated. I admit, acceptance of vegetarianism as a reality in Canadian and American society has increased, with vegetarian dishes being offered on wedding RSVP cards and meatless food (in addition to side salads) now being widely served in restaurants.
Another aspect of vegetarianism's portrayal is the perceived gender of food and its accompanying stereotypes about strength and weakness. This might seem silly. But if we assign these foods as either feminine or masculine, I'm sure that most people (at least most people I know) will arrive at the same conclusions.
Steak | Bacon | Beer | Cheeseburger |
Corn on the Cob | Whiskey
Consider where you got these ideas: Why did you feel that certain foods were more masculine or feminine? (Let me know in the comments!)
Commercials, such as this one from the Burger King 'I Am Man' ad campaign, definitely reinforce gender stereotypes and segregate men's food (i.e. burgers) from "chick food" (i.e. quiche and tofu). Pay attention to the lyrics of the song, which has been dubbed a "Manthem" (anthem for men, since men have been so oppressed and need to unite and rebel, get it?):
Note the use of multiple second wave feminist movement symbols: burning undergarments, banners being unfurled over buildings, marching in the streets, and the parodying of Helen Reddy's song I Am Woman.
Manthem Lyrics
I am man, hear me roar/ In numbers too big to ignore/ And I’m way too hungry to settle for chick food!/ ‘Cause my stomach’s starting to growl,/And I’m going on the prowl,/For a Texas Double Whopper!/ “Man that’s good!”/
Oh, yes, I’m a guy!/I’ll admit I’ve been fed quiche!/Wave tofu bye-bye!/Now it’s for Whopper beef I reach./ I will eat this meat/(Eat this meat)/‘Till my innie turns into an outie!/
I am starved!/ I am incorrigible!/ And I need to scarf a burger beef bacon jalapeno good thing down! (Yeah!)/ I am hungry!/ (I am hungry)/ I am incorrigible!/ I AM MAN!
U.S. published men's magazine Esquire has a food blog titled "Eat Like A Man," where the authors impart wisdom and reinforce the gender of certain food. A recent post declared that U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates eats like a man because he loves eating beef. A recent post about a new dessert began:
I know what you think of the frozen-desserts aisle: That's a place for women and children, not men. That there's a reason you never saw Steve McQueen or John Wayne eating frozen desserts, and it's because it's not possible for a man to look cool while eating a Popsicle or scooping melting ice cream off a cone.
That all may be true, and probably is.
Note: Based on her name, Elizabeth Gunnar, author of these (and many other posts), is a woman.
Advertising certainly plays a role in the food preferences of some people. Culture, or perhaps different/lack of advertising, help shape food preferences outside of North America. In a post at Salon.com, Riddhi Shah presents studies showing that the gender of food may be a regional thing, and she reflects on the eating habits in her household:
But beyond the borders of the United States, the story is different. The same study found that in Spain, men and women craved chocolate equally — about 25 percent, while in Egypt, neither sex craved chocolate, with both sexes showing a high preference for salty foods...
And when I took my work home, I realized that my husband and I — both of us grew up in India — have eating habits that fly in the face of all these studies. My husband has an insatiable sweet tooth, can't go to bed without his nightly Mars bar, and diligently spends hours in the fruit aisle. I, on the other hand, am a complete dairy fiend, love my protein, adore a good whisky, and wouldn't notice if Ben & Jerry's stopped producing Cherry Garcia tomorrow...
A Japanese friend recently told me about new language being used to describe the dating habits of Japanese people. Apparently, people in Japan are noticing a decline in nikushoku men and a corresponding rise in soshoku men.
NIKUSHOKU | SOSHOKU
Meat-eating/carnivore | Grass-eating/herbivore
Aggressive toward women, love, and sex | Not aggressive toward women, love, or sex
Prefer beer to cocktails | Prefer cocktails to beer
Prefer going out | Prefer being at home
Not fashion conscious | Fashion conscious
Not eco-conscious | Eco-conscious
Eat, drink, weigh as much as other men | Eat, drink, and weigh less than other men
Pair the idea of meat-eating and grass-eating people with other connotations that meat carries and we get some sexist results. Meat-eating men are supposed to eat meat/women (consuming women; women as meat).
Text reads: Skin good enough to eat
Meat-eating women are supposed to eat meat (male genitalia are often associated with meat; oral sex reference). And then grass-eating people are either meat or alone.
In Japan, interesting social changes are resulting in independent women who don't feel that they need men. And many Japanese men are backing away from their traditional role as aggressor/pursuer in relationships with women. With declining birth rates and marriages, those with an interest in perpetuating the perceived homogeneous Japanese nation are concerned. However, some women are taking on the more assertive role of finding a mate, which solves the problem of people being alone but complicates the traditional gender roles.
I am especially intrigued by the idea of nikushoku/carnivores and the implication that men are supposed to hunt women. The metaphor blatantly uses meat to symbolize women as something to be hunted, violently subdued against their will, and consumed. This analysis could be seen as an over-reaction. And understood in a vacuum, this could be the case. However, the carnivore/herbivore dichotomy exists in nature and this metaphor is being lived out by people in Japan (and elsewhere).
The idea of women being meat, which is available for consumption at the will of the consumer, is neither rare nor absurd. In addition to being treated like a piece of meat, a woman in North America can easily find people of her gender being portrayed as something to be consumed, such as beer and pieces of meat:
Text at bottom reads:
Break the dull beef habit
In some cases, celebrities actively participate in identifying themselves with meat or animals. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was outraged that Lady Gaga wore a meat dress, claiming it glamourized the murder of animals. It is interesting to contrast Lady Gaga and PETA's media representations: Lady Gaga claimed she was making a political statement and told Ellen DeGeneres "I am not a piece of meat." PETA represents sexual images of women as meat to promote vegetarianism, veganism, and animal rights.
Want to see more? Watch this Carol J. Adams slideshow!
And how did being treated like a piece of meat come to be a negative thing? Why does it mean being treated like you are worthless, disposable, inferior, and existing for the pleasure of someone else? Because that's how our society treats meat and, by extension, animals. And women and animals (or more broadly, nature) are often treated as inferior - not to mention people of colour, immigrants, people with disabilities, etc. This seems to me to be an extension of the complex web of inequalities that makes up society. But this also goes beyond human society and a new question stands out to me: why do we treat meat (and animals, and nature) as worthless, disposable, and inferior, and existing solely as a source of pleasure for someone else?
Carol J. Adams has a lot to say on the topic. Her book, The Sexual Politics of Meat, is on my to-read list and her website/blog have offered me lots of information in the meantime.
In her blog, Adams addresses Myths about Vegans, one of which is relevant to this topic, and worth quoting at length:
In 1990, I wrote a book called “The Sexual Politics of Meat” to dissect the idea that eating animal flesh makes someone strong and virile. The myth gained steam in the 1960s when anthropologists Desmond Morris and Robert Ardrey attributed the advancement of civilization to “man the hunter.” Today, cultural messages — from Burger King’s “I am Man” ad campaign to a Hummer commercial implying that a guy who buys tofu must “restore the balance” by buying a huge car — reinforce this myth. Even Michael Pollan, who details a boar hunt in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” falls prey to the idea that men must fell prey: “Walking with a loaded rifle in an unfamiliar forest bristling with the signs of your prey is thrilling.” For vegans, this cartoonish hunter porn is ridiculous. What Pollan sees as a dilemma, we welcome as a decision.
But if real men once ate meat, it’s not so any longer. Olympic track legend (and New Jersey state Senate hopeful) Carl Lewis is a vegan. Former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson is a vegan. Outkast’s Andre 3000 is a vegan. In Austin, a group of firefighters went vegan. But beyond the famous names who have embraced veganism for ethical or health reasons is the incontrovertible fact that eating meat doesn’t increase libido or fertility — and a vegan diet doesn’t diminish them.
In sum, the gender of certain foods, like chocolate and red meat, appears to be less universal than the association of women with meat and men as carnivores. I encourage you to start making more connections between vegetarianism/veganism/animal rights and feminism/sexism/gender stereotypes. Hopefully these ideas will provoke reflection on what you put in your mouth.
I'll leave you with one more thing to think about:
Yesterday, June 21, 2011 was the first day of summer! Also known as the Summer Solstice, it has many titles:
Alban Heflin, Alben Heruin, All-couples day, Feast of Epona, Feast of St. John the Baptist, Feill-Sheathain, Gathering Day, Johannistag, Litha, Midsummer, Sonnwend, Thing-Tide, Vestalia, etc.
This holiday represents many things to many people in the Northern Hemisphere (the Southern Hemisphere experiences the Summer Solstice in December). Historically, Europeans have celebrated Midsummer because it marks: the Ancient middle of Summer, the astronomical beginning of Summer, and the nativity of St. John the Baptist.
Flowers have special significance in various Midsummer celebrations around the world:
In Latvia, "celebrations consist of a lot of traditional elements - eating Jāņu cheese, drinking beer, singing hundreds of Latvian folk songs dedicated to Jāņi, burning bonfire to keep light all through the night and jumping over it, wearing wreaths of flowers (for the women) and leaves (for the men)"
In Lithuania, "the traditions include singing songs and dancing until the sun sets, telling tales, searching to find the magic fern blossom at midnight, jumping over bonfires, greeting the rising midsummer sun and washing the face with a morning dew, young girls float flower wreaths on the water of river or lake."
In Norway, it is said that "if a girl puts flowers under her pillow that night, she will dream of her future husband."
In Poland, "people dress in traditional Polka dress, and girls throw wreaths made of flowers into the Baltic Sea, and into lakes or rivers. "
In Russia and Ukraine, "many rites of this holiday are connected with water, fertility and autopurification. The girls, for example, would float their flower garlands on the water of rivers and tell their fortunes from their movement."
In Sweden, "the main celebrations take place on the Friday, and the traditional events include raising and dancing around a huge maypole. Before the maypole is raised, greens and flowers are collected and used to cover the entire pole. Raising and dancing around a maypole (majstång or midsommarstång) is an activity that attracts families and many others. People dancing around the pole listen to traditional music and some even wear traditional folk costumes. In addition, many wear crowns made of wild springs and wildflowers on their heads."
The rapid news cycle that we experience daily means that Dominique Strauss-Kahn (apparently aka DSK) and his alleged sexual attack on a hotel attendant in New York is no longer in the headlines. But the power that Strauss-Kahn represents and the enduring injustice of rape are still present in the world and are intrinsically connected.
DSK embodies power in a variety of ways: He is a white, heteronormative man from the Global North (France). He is university educated, and has held arguably (debatably?) respectable professional titles such as politician, economist and lawyer. Despite being part of the French Socialist Party, he has enjoyed the wealth and privileges that accompany these identities (presumably he was paid well by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)).
His identity carries so much social capital because of the complex relationships between entrenched hierarchies of race, class, gender, sex, sexual orientation, citizenship status, etc. And the power inequalities that favour men over women contribute to our global culture of rape. Many other power relations are implicated in this violent sexual interaction: he was European and she was African, he was rich and she was working for him in a service job.
At the international level, DSK has been a representative of the IMF, which has arguably used the power of the Global North to its advantage.
I just started reading "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," a biographical account of modern American empire by John Perkins. The comic above points to the figurative "raping and pillaging" of the world's resources by the elite of the world. In the Preface (I said I only just started...), Perkins describes some of the world's current predicaments, such as inequality, war and poverty. He offers an explanation for these issues:
Some would blame our current problems on an organized conspiracy. I wish it were so simple. Members of a conspiracy can be rooted out and brought to justice. This system, however, is fueled [sic] by something far more dangerous than conspiracy. It is driven not by a small band of men but by a concept that has become accepted as gospel: the idea that all economic growth benefits humankind and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits. This belief also has a corollary: that those people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for exploitation.
The concept is, of course, erroneous.
Exploitation, of course, takes many forms: economic, labour, and sexual, to name a few.
P.S. While editing this, I was listening to KPFA free speech radio (online) and unexpectedly heard a discussion about the DSK scandal. I encourage you to listen to their analysis. They also mention a change.org petition demanding justice in this case. You can access it here.
Women's Magazine: Memorial Day with Empathy May 30, 2011 at 1:00pm
"Flooding is a slo-mo disaster like climate change..." and it certainly isn't the only disaster the planet is facing. Canada and the US are facing a string of environmental disasters and hurricane season has yet to begin.
Speaking of climate change... do you think maybe the flooding and tornadoes* (not to mention the environmental impacts in other parts of the world) might be connected to climate change? I sure do.
* While these events may not be directly linked to climate change, especially not immediately due to lack of data. Climate change means extreme weather events may be stronger, more frequent, etc.
Part of me agrees with Larry Powell, a long-time journalist, activist, photographer and writer based in rural, western Manitoba. I want to type: "It's Global Warning, Stupid!"
I don't know any climate change deniers but apparently they exist. According to this recent article, 9 out of 10 of the most prolific climate change denier publishers are linked to ExxonMobil. There are others who simply argue against changing the Western lifestyle model of over-consuming the planet's resources - because either it's too late, or it can't be done, or the economy would be compromised. In short, we can't afford to change.
But as many environmental activists have asked: Can we afford not to?
Even without the pressing issue of climate change, there are other reasons that we should care about the earth and everything on it. Climate change aside, humans are contributing to: - rapid and significant loss of biodiversity - fresh water shortages - pollution: air, water, soil - plastic pollution (heard of the gyres?)
Or, we could buy into some specie-ism (like sexism, but for species), and think about how we impact our fellow human beings through our interaction with them and the planet. Here are some examples of environmental racism from the USA: Cancer Alley is an area in Louisiana formerly referred to as the Petrochemical corridor - where petrochemicals are processed. The population is composed of African-American and low-income individuals with little university level education, and there are high unemployment levels despite the industry. There are also high rates of cancer found in Louisiana (#2 in USA), as well as more incidents of rare cancers than normal.
Hurricane Katrina severely impacted residents of New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005. Due to drilling and extending pipelines over the years, the wetlands, which are natural defences against soil erosion, were damaged which led to more severe flooding in harsh weather. Additionally, certain people had the means to leave the city (evacuation plans centered on individuals using their own cars to exit the city) while others did not. The division was clearly related to race, citizenship, income level, etc.
The BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 affected subsistence fisher(wo)men and many others employed in the area. Certain populations were more severely impacted in the aftermath of the blow-out: immigrants, prisoners (essentially slave labour) and the impoverished fishing community were paid too little, if anything, to clean up oil and tar from the beaches and sea, and were not given appropriate protection for the bodies. Many became ill during or after working on the clean up.
The Tar Sands/Oil Sands in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Northwest Territories, have been described as one of the worst environmental disaster in the world. Aboriginal people in the region have not been included in the “development.” First Nations peoples have been neither consulted nor compensated for the destruction of the land and water. One specific case is of the Fort Chipewyan aboriginal people who have reported large increases in cancer rates as tar sands production has increased upstream; the fish are sick and inedible and many residents no longer drink the water.
What about people who don't have the privileges that come with being American or Canadian?
Texaco (acquired by Chevron, 2001) polluted Ecuador for decades and refuses to compensate local inhabitants. The Ecuadorian Amazon was polluted by Texaco from the time it began drilling without permission of the local population. The company cut costs by dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste water and 17 million gallons of oil, and abandoned more than 90 unlined/uncovered water pits filled with toxic sludge. The impacted indigenous peoples, mostly impoverished mestizo communities, had their water sources polluted, which has caused fish to disappear and become inedible, cancer rates have risen, many have experienced birth defects, etc. Chevron claims there’s no solid evidence; lawsuits were in courts in USA and Ecuador since 1993; recent ruling (Feb. 14, 2011) by Ecuador courts found Chevron guilty ($8.6 billion); currently, Chevron is fighting the judgement and denying wrongdoing.
So how is all of the above connected to flooding and tornadoes? In multiple ways. In a Lion King way, we're all part of the circle of life. In an Interlocking Systems of Domination theory way, different types of systemic oppression are interconnected and interdependent and we all occupy a location within each of these systems.
For example: racism, sexism, heterosexism and cultural imperialism all rely on each other. As a white, heterosexual, Canadian I privilege from systems that oppress others, but as a woman, sexism's raison d'être is to oppress me. All of these -isms rely on each other.
Sherene Razack clearly explains why we should be fighting against every type of oppression and inequality:
in focusing on our subordination, and not on our privilege, and in failing to see the connections between them… we fail to realize that we cannot undo our own marginality without simultaneously undoing all the systems of oppression (from Looking White People in the Eye, 1998).
And in the end, privilege will only get you so far if and/or when the Earth becomes uninhabitable.
It's not as simple as "have" and "have not." But "having it" to any degree automatically makes it harder to talk about in an insightful way. Without coming off like, well, a privileged dick.
I was born in, and live in Canada. My socioeconomic status is good. I'm university educated. I'm white. Cis gendered. Heterosexual. Able bodied.
What can somebody like me bring to the table when talking about privilege?
The comment led to outrage. In a concrete sense, it led to the creation of Slutwalk, a protest march to reclaim the word slut which has gone global.
So. The infamous statement by one misguided Toronto cop. I was outraged for a few reasons. Most significantly, I feel that it is absolutely appalling for a law enforcement officer to express this kind of victim blaming attitude. The way in which the message was delivered is harmful too: "we're not supposed to say this but..." i.e. "it's not publicly acceptable for us to express, but this is how cops really feel." This, in an already distrustful city. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to assume we can all agree here and now that this kind of statement is unacceptable (even though I know there are many people who do hold this opinion).
But it also shocked me for a reason very much tied into the privilege discussed above. Due to the qualities I list above, I have tended to assume that cops will leave me alone. Not just that, I have assumed that cops have my best interests in mind. That they will serve and protect me.
This is an obvious example of what it really means to be privileged. It's not that I've never been hassled by the police, because I have been. But I think it's safe to assume that the "degree of hassle" would have been greater if I were, say, black. Homeless. A young man. A prostitute. Or in some way visibly outside the norm.
I'm actually conflicted on whether I like the idea of Slutwalk or not. Something about it has never sat quite right with me, although I couldn't say what exactly until I read this excellent article. I agree that the ability to participate in a "Slutwalk" comes from a place of privilege, and that it doesn't necessarily do much to change the systemic problems created by, basically, slutshaming. On the other hand, I do think it's a really difficult problem to overcome because people who engage in slutshaming seem to me to have very deeply ingrained prejudices. And I think it's a worthy goal for women to reclaim and own their sexuality. (Also even though I agree with many of the above author's points, I do think using the words "white supremacy" in the title is more harmful than helpful. I idealistically believe feminists should go easy on each other even when we disagree with each other or think that others are acting in a way that is misguided. Maybe that's my privilege talking.)
Anyways. Privilege. Touchy topic. Most times when I read a piece by a privileged person talking about privilege, I feel that they get it wrong. And I'm not saying that to somehow claim that I've got it right, because I really don't know what I'm talking about.
But instead of opening up a slut-specific firestorm, I wish that this event would have led to a discussion of police prejudice and how it gets reinforced simply by virtue (vice?) of being a police officer.
Some police officers go into their careers holding certain prejudices. E.g., Black people commit more crimes. Natives abuse more substances. Girls dressed like sluts are more likely to be sexually assaulted.
Sidenote: I would like to put sluts in quotation marks for the entirety of this piece because I really do take issue with everything about that word. The idea that women who like sex deserve to be labelled by a derogatory term. The idea that such women dress a certain way. The idea that you can tell how much sex a woman wants by the way that she dresses. And of course, the idea that dressing a certain way is equivalent to consenting to sex.
Let's use the firestorm example. A police officer who believes sluts get raped, is more likely to find evidence to reinforce his belief. As the first level responders to crime, police witness, on a daily basis, the incidents the rest of us may only hear about, sporadically, perhaps diluted through whatever channel (e.g. news). Even demographics which are more likely to be victims of crime, probably don't witness the same amount as police do. If my hypothetical prejudiced police officer responds to 50 "sluts" and 50 "prudes" reporting sexual assault cases, he is nevertheless more likely to remember the evidence that confirms his beliefs, i.e., more likely to remember the "sluts." That's the nature of prejudice - it is self-perpetuating.
Secondly, there is actually a real reason that perpetrators might be more likely to prey on women dressed like "sluts" and it comes in two parts. One, rapists prey on vulnerable individuals. Individuals who won't be believed, or perhaps even heard. Two, if cops express the opinion that sluts deserve to get raped (or that they were asking for it, or that they brought it on themselves), they become a vulnerable population. See how that's a vicious cycle? It's not the manner of dress that's inherently problematic. It's the values that are attached to that manner of dress by people who hold power, such as police. And perpetrators.
Unfortunately for Toronto, the ball is getting dropped here. Now I know Slutwalk is about reclaiming the word slut and not explicitly f*ck the police (am I going to get arrested for writing that on the internet?). That's not my message either. I'm just pointing out the problem that stands out most obviously to me, and I don't think the Slutwalk movement is really addressing it.
As the members of the public who enforce the law, police officers should be trustworthy, accountable, and educated. I know that probably seems like a total pipe dream to people who are far more targeted by police than someone such as myself. And don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly hopeful myself. I'm not even sure what steps can be taken to progress towards that point. For one thing, can you even openly protest a police force without suffering some kind of serious consequences?
So for all that it's not perfect, I respect the organizers of Slutwalk for creating a movement that many people identified with and wanted to be a part of. Actual, physical mobilization always makes me happy to see. And as a final statement, I do think that anybody who uses the word slut in a derogatory term, really does not deserve to get laid ever again in their life. So if Slutwalk is making people of all genders stand up for that cause, even if it's a privileged one, it's nevertheless a step in the right direction.
The other day I ended up on an awesome website that examines media images through a sociological lens and I came across a post about "ever-fabulous" Sarah Haskins. Not only did this conjure up memories of watching her Current TV segment Target Women with my past roommates, it made me miss her humour.
I can admit that I am often angry when I see ridiculous media representations of women (and other marginalized groups). Sometimes I get frustrated because my fellow audience members don't disagree with the advertising messages as vehemently as I do, if at all. I have trouble taking advertisements lightly because I am aware of the concrete impacts they can have. Additionally, having taken a course on media and feminist studies, I have a tendency to approach commercials from a theoretical perspective and to connect them to the big picture of oppression.
Here are some examples of problematic advertisements. The first one features some colonial imagery while the others mostly deal portray sexism, specifically featuring white women. (If you have any questions about why I interpret these as problematic, let me know in the comments and I'll be happy to explain).
In sum, ads usually piss me off.
Which is why I find Target Women to be refreshing and Sarah Haskins to be inspiring. I (finally) created a Twitter account last month and was excited to find Haskins. She had a baby(!) and is still funny. Whether you've seen these before or not, I'm sure you'll enjoy them. I've included three episodes (about chocolate, hair and skin care) in this post. There are dozens more available here.
So, what do you think of Target Women, Sarah Haskins and/or all those advertisements you see everyday?
P.S. Click here to see some more advertisements that specifically relate to body image and women!
P.P.S. I'm also adding the favourite Target Women episodes of cg (fellow contributor to this blog):
