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
