#DickheadDetox: Aaron Carter's #tipsforgirls

Aaron Carter, the Dude internationally reknown as the little brother of some other dude from some boyband from way back when, has taken to twitter to reveal his dating #tipsforgirls.

Bless his cotton socks, these are the pearls of wisdom from The Younger Brother of What's His Pickle:

Aaron Carter ‏@AARONCARTER16h Confident woman are sexy to any man. Don't pretend to be someone your not just to please a man. #TipsForGirls 

Aaron Carter ‏@AARONCARTER17h Be Approachable- men don't like rejection- a woman with an attitude to her look will scare a man away. #tipsforgirls 

Aaron Carter ‏@AARONCARTER17h A woman's appearance is a weapon to attracting a man- always look your best ( neatness, clothes,hair ,makeup,scent,etc... #tipsforgirls

I can not think Aaron enough for bringing these pearls to our attention, sometimes I actually forget that we live in a culture where women's value is based entirely on their ability to pass the Patriarchal Fuckability Test. I forget that women's intelligence and love is completely irrelevant unless they are white, blonde,  and thin. I forget that women have to ensure that their behaviour and appearance are pleasing at all times. God forbid, we hurt men's feelings but not actually wanting to fuck them. 

We must always be approachable; even when we don't want to be approached because men's feelings are more important than women's safety and bodily autonomy.

Some genius has suggested that Aaron write a book about his #tipsforgirls. No one try to dissuade him from this policy; just imagine the hilarity it would cause on twitter.

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Don' cha Wish Your Girlfriend: Reinforcing the Patriarchal Fuckability Test

I loathe the PussyCat Dolls' "Dontcha Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me". Lyrically, it's a master-class in woman-blaming culture and passing the Patriarchal Fuckability Test. This just got retweeted into my TL and I love it:

Pony Pony Tangerina‏@ColeyTangerina: DONTCHA WISH YOUR GIRLFRIEND WAS uninterested in competitive beauty standards that undermine the solidarity women need to end patriarchy.

Blondie are the same. The lyrics of some of their biggest hits are about being desperate for a man; especially a man in a relationship with another woman. There is nothing powerful or liberating about hurting another woman and the lyrics in these types of songs both encourage the myth that women need a man all the time and that the only way for women to have any value is if a man wants to fuck them. 

The Patriarchal Fuckability Test is dangerous for all women. The "you need a man to be complete" is equally dangerous. We need to stop purchasing music which encourages these myths, even if they are sung by women.

The lyrics are below: 

Don't Cha"
(feat. Busta Rhymes)

[Busta Rhymes]
OK (ahh)
Yeah (ahh)
Oh, we about to get it just a lil hot and sweaty in this mu'fucka (oh, baby)
Ladies let's go (uhh)
Soldiers let's go (dolls)
Let me talk to y'all and just you know
Give you a little situation... listen (fellas)

[Buster Rhymes]
Pussycat Dolls
Ya see this shit get hot
Everytime I come through when I step up in the spot (are you ready)
Make the place sizzle like a summertime cookout
Prowl for the best chick
Yes I'm on the lookout (let's dance)
Slow banging shorty like a belly dancer with it
Smell good, pretty skin, so gangsta with it (oh, baby)
No tricks only diamonds under my sleeve
Gimme the number
But make sure you call before you leave

[Pussycat Dolls]
I know you like me (I know you like me)
I know you do (I know you do)
That's why whenever I come around
She's all over you (she's all over you)
I know you want it (I know you want it)
It's easy to see (it's easy to see)
And in the back of your mind
I know you should be on with me (babe)

[Chorus:]
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
Don't cha?
Don't cha?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?
Don't cha?
Don't cha?

Fight the feeling (fight the feeling)
Leave it alone (leave it alone)
'Cause if it ain't love
It just ain't enough to leave my happy home (my happy home)
Let's keep it friendly (let's keep it friendly)
You have to play fair (you have to play fair)
See I don't care
But I know she ain't gonna wanna share

[Chorus:]
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
Don't cha?
Don't cha?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?
Don't cha?
Don't cha?

[Busta Rhymes]
OK, I see how it's goin' down (ahh, don't cha)
Seems like shorty wanna little menage pop off or something (let's go)
Well let me get straight to it
Every broad wan watch a nigga when I come through it
It's the god almighty, looking all brand new
If shorty wanna jump in my ass then vanquish
Looking at me all like she really wanna do it
Tryna put it on me till my balls black an blueish
Ya wanna play wit ah playa girl then play on
Strip out the Chanel
And leave the lingerie on
Watch me and I'mma watch you at the same time
Looking at ya wan break my back
You're the very reason why I keep a pack ah the Magnum
An wit the wagon hit chu in the back of tha magnum
For the record, don't think it was something you did
Shorty all on me cause it's hard to resist the kid
I got a idea that's dope for y'all
As y'all could get so I could hit the both of y'all

[Pussycat Dolls] 

I know she loves you (I know she loves you) 

I understand (I understand) 

I'd probably be just as crazy about you 

If you were my own man 

Maybe next lifetime (maybe next lifetime) 

Possibly (possibly) 

Until then old friend 

Your secret is safe with me 

[Chorus:] 

Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me? 

Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me? 

Don't cha? 

Don't cha? 

Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me? 

Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me? 

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Anne of Green Gables is a Redheaded Child Not a Blonde Playboy Centerfold

This is the new cover of Lucy Maud Montgomery's children's classic Anne of Green Gables. You remember Anne: a redheaded, 11 year old orphan who hates her hair and who is sent to live with Matthew and Marilla who wanted a boy; a girl who spends the first two books learning to love herself both as a female and one with a red hair. At least, it's been a while since I've read the book but I definitely remember Anne being a redhead and a child; not a retro-Playboy centrefold. I definitely don't remember Anne rolling about in a haystack like a supporting body in Dukes of Hazzard. Being 7 am, I have taken the liberty of checking with Wikipedia  to make sure I'm not completely out-to-lunch with this. They're pretty sure Anne is supposed to a redheaded child too. Now, I do know that Wikipedia isn't always the most accurate source of information but even they can't confuse a redheaded child with an 18 year blonde with breasts being posed in a sexualised manner.

Has it really come to the point that one of the best books written for girls by a brilliant author which has already sold more than 50 million copies and been translated into 20 languages needs to be repackaged as if the target audience is middle-aged men with a teenage girl sex fetish? Because, they've never struck me as the target audience for Anne of Green Gables. And, frankly, everything else in our culture is targeted at them. Why can't girls have one book that doesn't erase our lived experiences?

Why does everything have to reference a pornified, heteronormative sexuality?

Why do we assume young girls won't want to read a book about another young girl, especially since 50 million of us already have, if she isn't sexualised?

FFS, the whole point of Anne of Green Gables is learning to love ourselves even if we have freckles, red hair and aren't called Cordelia. It is not a book about a blond teenager learning to be a sex object. It's a book about a child discovering themselves and loving themselves.

This is precisely the kind of shit which evidences why porn culture is so insidious.

Anne should not pass the Patriarchal Fuckability Test. 

She is a child; to pretend otherwise is disgusting and creepy. 


This is the cover of the edition I have. Notice that Anne is both a redhead and a child; not a blonde woman being posed in a sexualised manner.

Plus, let's be totally honest here, there is NO WAY Marilla would let Anne prance about in a boy's shirt.

This is from the Mumsnet thread I started today. I thought it needed sharing:

FastidiaBlueberry Thu 07-Feb-13 12:04:17

Who is the publisher?

This really is pernicious and a brilliant example of porn culture.

Any child buying this book is receiving the message that being a girl means being sexy before being anything else. Even if the words in the book say something completely different and don't even talk about the need to be fuckable, the subliminal message is that even when you're busy doing other stuff, sexy is where it's at. If this goes on, it will almost be impossible to find pictures of female humans which don't emphasise their fuckability above every other aspect of them. Are we to look forward to a representation of Hermione Granger suggestively holding her wand in her mouth, or near her arse or something, a la 50 shades? WTF?

Who the fuck thought it was a good idea, is the publishing house full of child-molesters or something?

I mean seriously, what possesses an otherwise normal person, to imagine that the best representation of an 11 year old red-haired girl with freckles (something the book is very specific about) is a sexualised picture of a teenager? There's something actually quite sinister about this, what is wrong with the adults who authorised this cover? I really do think they should be forced to make a statement about why they felt it was appropriate to pornify the image of a child on a book whose target market is female children. It's beyond disgusting, it's actually amazing - as if peadophiles are working in the office and deciding the artwork and the normal adults there are accepting the paedophile view of the world, that every child is a potential fuck. 

And of course, we're all going to be told that we're overreacting, it's only a picture and it's fine for 8 year old girls to be brainwashed in this way.

FFS.

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It's Femen. Again. This Time They're Running About the Vatican.

Yep. That's an image of Femen taken yesterday at their protest in the Vatican in support of gay rights. Because the best way to interact with a homophobic and misogynist patriarchal institution is to have young women bare their breasts  and shout. 

Who precisely were Femen addressing with this protest? This is my fundamental problem with their form of "protest". I'm not sure who they are actually targeting. Or, what they are targeting. If they are protesting a homophobic march in Paris, why are they in the Vatican? If they are targeting the Catholic Church, well, let's be honest here, the Vatican doesn't actually give a shit what women think. They are highly unlikely to change the minds of those visiting the Vatican. Instead, they have put themselves in a situation where they could have been very badly hurt. 

This really isn't feminism. It is a mockery of it.

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Hilary Devey's Women on Top

I watched exactly ten minutes of Hilary Devey's Women on Top. The premise is interesting: a successful British business woman who didn't understand the gendered barriers to women's equality within capitalism traveled to Norway to investigate their practise of quotas of women's participation in employment. 

I stopped watching after they said women in Norway "embrace their feminine side" with 1 years maternity pay. Because women in business must have babies otherwise they aren't actually women. Or, something equally stupid. 

Perhaps, the BBC might want to actually think about gender stereotypes before embarking on these types of programs and don't reinforce the same misogynistic bullshit that they claim to be "investigating".

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So, Playboy, Definitely Art. And, other Dubious Statements

Hugh Hefner's 21 year old second son from his second marriage is apparently lining up to take over the company. When he finishes school. Obviously. This rather creepy article in the Independent, which is attempting to pass for news, would like everyone to know that Hef Jr definitely thinks Playboy is art and not pornography. 

I'd like to believe the article's other claim that the Playboy is only a "marginal" brand now but, let's be honest, they aren't making their money from the magazine. Instead, they have been capitalising on ole' Hugh's penchant for sexual violence in reality TV programs like The Girls Next Door. The Playboy Club TV program may have been cancelled in its first season but the Playboy clubs are coming back [and are the focus of some brilliant feminist activism]. Sales of Playboy Magazine itself are falling but Playboy brand merchandising is everywhere. For reasons I genuinely don't get, parents are buying their children Playboy branded duvet covers and notebooks. Playboy merchandise is flaming everywhere and that's without getting into the "sexy" Playboy dress-up clothes.

Ranting about Playboy merchandising on children aside [and I judge parents who buy 6 year olds jeans with Playboy bunnies on their arse or t-shirts which say 'Future Porn Star'. It's not funny or clever. It's just creepy], Cooper Hefner's attempts to rewrite Playboy's past and label their magazines 'art' rather than porn demonstrates some serious cognitive dissonance. Or, nincompoopery. Probably both. Whatever it is, Cooper is just not the brightest of sparks when he's comparing nude art with Playboy centerfolds insofar as he misses the whole freaking debate. Because, there is feminist debate about this and there is recognition that much of the art we admire is of questionable value morally and ethically. Hell, there's a whole lot of recognition that some of the artists whose work we admire are nothing more than sexual predators. Pretending that Playboy is 'art' isn't participating in that debate. It's the intellectual equivalent of running about with Darth Vader helmet back to front on one's head.

As for Cooper's discussion on the Bunny Girls and "empowerment", well, it's nice he's giving us permission to decide for ourselves but, really, when is Cooper going to participate in an activity which "empowers" him? Because, I'd really like to hear someone use that word on an activity men are required to participate in to be considered valuable.

And, honestly, how do you even unpack the following twaddle:

"There are many domestic issues in the US that bother me, such as gay rights or fighting for the legalisation of marijuana. But as we go global we need to stand for more important issues internationally. Women's rights in the Middle East and internet censorship in China are two things we can stand for and have an influence in, especially when we're coming into these emerging markets like India and we're faced with the challenge of opening up Playboy clubs where the bunnies can't even wear bunny outfits. You have these countries which are in a very similar place sexually – especially when it comes to gender roles – where the US was when my dad first started."

"Faced with the challenge" of opening in markets where women aren't allowed to wear Bunny outfits? I genuinely don't what to stay except that's a whole load of  nincompoopery which is seriously missing the point, not to mention just a teensy bit of orientalist discourse. That's without mentioning the whole issue of women's rights currently being destroyed in the US with access to abortion being curtailed everywhere and gang-rapes like that in Steubenville being a whole lot more common than many would like to believe. Or, that internet censorship isn't only in China. Why is it important for women in other countries to have the right to dress in Bunny outfits when American women wearing Bunny outfits are slut-shamed? How is expanding the Playboy empire going to help women? What has the legalisation of marijuana got to do with large swathes of the planet not having basic human rights like access to clean water? 

Being raised in the Playboy mansion [and the house next door where his mother lived] can't have been a healthy place for two young boys to grow up. I don't think its all that surprising that Cooper's brother Marston has a recent conviction for domestic violence. Whatever your opinion of porn, it isn't ever appropriate for children and the two boys would have been exposed during Playboy "parties", photo shoots and the filming of the Girls Next Door. These would not have been simply nude women. The Playboy empire is built on porn.

Christie Hefner, Cooper's older sister, ran the company until 2009 when she stepped down. She oversaw the expansion of the empire out of the magazine industry and she put an end to some of Hugh's more egregious behaviours, at least ones financially supported by the company. Cooper may not want to wear his father's pyjamas but neither he nor his brother Marsten come across as well-rounded men with a respect for women and women's sexuality. I don't agree with many of Christie Hefner's expansion policies, and I certainly find the show Girls Next Door deeply creepy, but I'm quite certain that Christie Hefner wanted to run a business. I'm not sure that's what Cooper or Marston are looking for.

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In Defence of Megan Fox.

Until today, the only thing I knew about Megan Fox was that she starred in the first two Transformer movies and that she may or may not have been fired from the third for calling the director Micheal Bay a misogynist. It's hard to say if she walked or was fired as Fox is keeping a dignified silence whilst Bay, and her former co-star Shia LeBoeuf, are bad-mouthing her at every opportunity. Whatever actually happened, Fox is clearly a better person than either Bay or LeBoeuf; although that isn't the best compliment since I've eaten carrots that had more empathy than Bay. Suffice it to say, I'm on Team Fox.

Today, I learned that Fox is now married and has a very new baby. 

I learned about Fox's new baby from an op-ed piece in the Independent which effectively accuses Fox, but not her husband, of child neglect for hiring a night nurse. I have no idea who the writer Susan Elkin actually is, above her very basic biography attached to the article, but it's been a while since I've read a piece written by a woman who so clearly hates other women. 

Because, there is no excuse for what Elkin has written. 

There is no excuse for the Independent to have published the op-ed piece. 

But, you know what, I would like to thank Megan Fox for publicly acknowledging that she has hired a night nurse. 

Because what really pisses me off is the culture of "motherhood" that requires "celebrity" women to pretend that they do everything all by themselves after having a baby. That is what is harmful to all women: the idea that a woman who has just given birth must immediately lose all their baby weight, baking 250 cupcakes for the school fete, going back to work full-time at 6 weeks whilst simultaneously looking immaculate in their immaculate house. Celebrity women who try to exist outside this narrow and punitive construction of mother are punished by the likes of Perez Hilton calling them fat and Hello mag making snide remarks about their lack of make-up.

So, power to Megan Fox for being honest about something that was going to result in her being bullied. How freaking brave is she?

And, that shit about whether or not Fox breastfeeds, well that's none of our business. The culture which pushes formula feeding unnecessarily onto new mothers and which sexualises women's breasts to the point that women can not breastfeed publicly without feeling uncomfortable is the problem. The culture which believes that women's bodies belong to their husbands and that a man's rights to access his possession's breasts are more important than a new infant is the problem. The culture which defines any woman who has given birth  as unfuckable until they lose all their "baby weight" is the problem. That is what we need to address.

We won't create a breast-feeding friendly culture when women write shit like this:

Babies are born to women – whether some feminists like it or not and wish it otherwise – and nature provides the baby’s food in the form of breast milk. That milk, and suckling it from the mother’s breast, is the child’s entitlement. Direct access to its mother’s breast milk is, in my book, every child’s human right. 

That doesn’t mean extracting it with a pump and handing it over to someone else to pour into the child either. It means proper tactile feeding from the breast and all the bonding which goes with that. Everyone knows that there is nothing better than breast milk for a baby’s health and, there are benefits for the mother too – not least, it is much easier to lose the baby weight if you breast feed than if you don’t. It is also considerable less hassle – at a time when you’re tired and maybe stressed – than fiddling about with bottles which have to be sterilised. And you have it with you, on tap as it were, wherever you and the child happen to be. 

If you hire a night nurse the child may be losing out on part of this and I regard that as a form of neglect.

Now, I get that Elkin is clearly trying to flog some book that no one actually wants to read but, unless you are actually stupid, no one would think the above was going to increase the number of women breastfeeding exclusively for 6 months. It just isn't. All it does is make women feel like failures if they don't. As for the hyperbole of child neglect, well, I'd suggest that Elkin wasn't the most effective teacher on the planet if that's her definition of child neglect.

Plus, Elkin doesn't actually understand the mechanics of breast-feeding. It's not the breast-feeding which changes the shape of women's breasts. That's the result of the weight gain during pregnancy and the subsequent loss of weight thereafter. Not breastfeeding will do nothing to prevent a woman's breasts from changing. Pregnancy changes women's breasts.

And women shouldn't be policing other women's bodies. We should be standing up for other women being forced by Patriarchal structures into making "choices" they do no want for fear of reprisal. 

In many ways, this article is just spiteful. It's just the kind of spiteful that the Patriarchy loves: pitting women against women. Normally, I'd veer on the side of ignoring, however insulting a woman who has just given birth and making her personally responsible for the decisions of a thousand other women isn't kind. 

Megan Fox may be a very privileged woman but she is still a woman. She doesn't deserve this kind of treatment. 

Megan Fox is just a woman trying to survive in the Patriarchy; just like the rest of us. 

Cross-Posted in the New Statesman

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In the missing the point entirely category today:

We have this somewhat ridiculous article by Kamila Kocialkowska on whether or not the cultural appropriation of the Plains Indian War Bonnet is offensive. Now, I fully planned on blogging about this last night after reading the article but the thought of, once again, having to point out that it doesn't matter if white Dudes think it's okay to run around pretending to be 'Indians', it's still rude. White Dudes have a habit of thinking all sorts of things are okay despite them being obviously racist, homophobic, disablist or misogynistic. As a general rule of thumb, if white Dudes think something is socially acceptable, it's probably best to take 2 minutes to double-check. Just in case.

I decided to have a bubble bath instead. I know this isn't a very helpful response to this level of nincompoopery but this will be something like the fourth time I've written about cultural appropriation in the past two weeks and I'm starting to bore myself. 

Here's the thing, I think the cultural appropriation of the Plains Indian War Bonnet by Lana Del Ray, No Doubt and Victoria's Secret is incredibly rude, offensive and totally lacking in critical thinking skills. Frankly, this total refusal to listen to the opinions of other people sets my teeth on edge. That's why we have a Tory party. If you don't belong to them and you are spouting the "it's P.C gone mad" line, you might want to rethink your political position. Or, acknowledge that you're an asshole. Or, both. Probably both.

Pretty much the entirety of Kocialkowska's article pissed me off with it's total refusal to engage with the opinions of others but I found this section particularly telling: 

The truth is that nowadays, cultural assimilation has become so all-pervasive it’s almost unnoticeable. Popular culture has always consisted of mining, borrowing from and subverting the cultural heritage of the past. In fact, Frederic Jameson went so far as to see this as a defining factor of the postmodern age. For him, the past and its symbols no longer exist, "except as a repository of genres, styles, and codes ready for commodification”.

This has vast implications for political incorrectness - no symbol can truly be said to be culturally isolated any more. The eagle-feathered headdress which inspired such extensive outrage on the Victoria's Secret runway doesn't belong to the Native American repositry alone. It's origins date back to widespread early cultures, including Aztec warriors, early Gaelic clan chiefs and Slavic hussars. Now it’s been assimilated into contemporary culture and passed into the collective unconscious. Its original meaning is melded and mixed in a sea of new, secular meanings.

In other words, in a postmodern, post-ironic, globalised world, can anyone really be said to have ownership over their own heritage?

First off, Victoria's Secret were referencing the Plains Indian War Bonnet. They were not referencing Aztec warriors or Gaelic clan chiefs or Slavic hussars. So, let's not play the "other-people-did-it-so-its-totally-not-special" game as it makes everyone look like a buckethead. Secondly, we all know that things-which-one-sticks-on-one's-head are frequently used as signifiers of power. That is because it is a simple and visible way to denote power relationships; see: the Victorian top-hat. Minimising or dismissing these signifiers, as Victoria's Secret did, is rude and is, inherently, racist. Thirdly, even if you were too dim to get this, First Nations, Metis, Inuit and Native Americans have been saying this for years. 30 seconds on google would have been evidence of this. Fourthly, invoking the "John-Wayne-and-Clint-Eastwood-were-in-movies-about-Injuns" argument just makes you look more racist and dim. The fact that they engaged in racist stereotypes does not make using those stereotypes acceptable. It just means there are a whole lot of racist, culturally insensitive, dim people running about the continent. 

Finally, we may be living in a world where postmodernism is God but that doesn't mean that postmodernism is actually God. Or, that most of the people running about claiming to be postmodern have any understanding of postmodernism. The word postmodernism is bandied about a lot by people who think it makes them sound clever when, frequently, it's the opposite. So, yes, people are entitled to have ownership over their own heritage. There is no grey area over this. Deliberately, or undeliberately, minimising, mocking or otherwise plagiarising the cultural heritage of other people is ignorant, arrogant and rude.

There is no such thing as post-irony either. That's the same twaddle as people suggesting we live in a post-feminist, post-racism world. It's just nincompoopery.

Oh, and what  Kocialkowska neglects to mention in her article is that the model in the War Bonnet image was meant to represent the month of November: the month where Americans give thanks for committing mass genocide. Because that wasn't at all stupid either.

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Eat Battery Farmed Chickens and Save Women: Challenging PETA's Reinforcement of Rape Culture

I know that this flies in the face of common sense and compassion but bear with me here. PETA’s campaigns are based on the idea that the objectification, sexualisation, and torture of women's bodies are a great way to raise awareness of animal rights. They glamorise, romanticise and eroticise Violence against Women because they refuse to either acknowledge the construction of “woman as object” within the Patriarchy, or take responsibility for the harm they cause to women by their campaigns. PETA usually uses the bodies of young, thin, blonde, white women as a canvas for their protest. Whilst their protests garner public attention, it isn’t because people are interested in animal rights. PETA have become a spectacle; their message lost in medium of their protest. PETA also seem to have completely forgotten what exactly they have been campaigning for and instead have become obsessed with out-porning the porn industry in their objectification of tortured women’s bodies.

PETA’s newest campaign is called “Fur Trim is Unattractive” and it has been getting considerable amount of press for both the level of misogyny and the generalised nincompoopery within it. It isn’t a new campaign though. It is yet another recycled campaign designed to shock; despite being neither original nor interesting. It's the normal "women with pubic hair are unfuckable" motif, as evidenced by the entire porn industry. One would have thought that an organisation who campaigns against the cosmetic industry's animal testing practises might be aware of the links between pornography, the fashion-beauty complex, and the unnecessary torture of animals. One would be wrong. The very last thing PETA is, is self-aware. Nor do they care that they are supposedly campaigning to prevent the torture of animals by financially profiting from the torturing the bodies of vulnerable women in porn.

Whilst it is undoubtedly unpleasant, the “Fur is Unattractive” campaign is actually rather tame for PETA. Over the past few years, their campaigns and street protests have become increasingly violent and quite deliberate in their use of Violence against Women. They are no longer content with using the bodies of naked women or even carving up women’s bodies as if we were meat. This year alone they have had one advertisement, developed for the Superbowl, banned for having women simulate sex with vegetables; an ad which was only marginally less offensive from Voina’s ‘protest’ art involving women having sex with frozen chickens. Their second ad campaign this year, entitled ‘Boyfriend Went Vegan and Knocked the Bottom out of Me’, should have been called An Ode to Violence Against Women: The Romance Period. It features a physically and sexually assaulted woman wearing a neck brace and covered in bruises because her boyfriend, newly vegan, has pounded her in every way possible. Apparently some of the unfortunate consequences of veganism and the subsequent “mind-blowing intercourse” are “sex injuries such as whiplash, pulled muscles, rug burn, and even a dislocated hip.” That isn't sex. It is rape.

A third campaign developed this year to celebrate World Vegan Day involves a large number of men gyrating, in increasingly more violent ways, with vegetables in place of their penis. Surprisingly, nothing makes me want to give up bacon like a Dude with a cucumber for a penis, or so I'm lead to believe. I'm not entirely sure what PETA was aiming for with this but this is pretty much the definition of creepy:

“A cucumber has never looked so good – or so wicked. In honour of World Vegan Day, watch this spicy video that gives a wink to the sexual health benefits of going vegan by showcasing men enthusiastically and proudly showing off some healthy protrusions from their trousers.”

PETA have pretty much become a parody of themselves. It would be amusing if it weren't for their constant perpetuation and perpetration of rape culture.

So, I say we start eating battery-farmed chickens to raise awareness of the objectification, sexualisation and torture of women's bodies. After all, PETA doesn't care how it raises awareness or who funds its campaigns, so why should feminists? PETA have gone so far as to develop their own porn channel to supposedly raise awareness of the abuse of animals. You don't see feminist groups raising funds by offering to kill rabbits live on the web; perhaps we should.

I believe PETA's advertising campaigns buy into the hyper-sexualised and hyper-masculinised culture in which women are treated as no more than Patriarchal fucktoys. PETA support, perpetuate, and perpetrate rape culture.

So, if PETA wants to reduce the discourse on animal cruelty to simply objectifying women as an advertising tool and encouraging rape culture, I'm going to start buying battery-farmed chickens.

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Victoria Secrets' Annual Demonstration of Misogyny: This Time With a Side of Racism

Victoria Secret's annual Fashion Show is testimony to the mainstreaming of the pornification of women's bodies. It represents everything which is wrong in the Patriarchy rendering women not only into objects for men to wank over but commodifying their bodies with the woman given the honour of wearing a $2.5 million dollar diamond studded bra considered The Ultimate Woman. It isn't so much a fashion show as a live action soft porn show with titillating photos of the models leaked online prior to the broadcast. I won't link any here but the images are the same poses as found in Playboy or any other mainstream soft porn magazine. Victoria Secret's trades on an image of respectability despite the fact that it uses the same techniques as porn to entice men. They reinforce rape culture by parading women in their underwear for male audiences. They are not selling underwear to women but the image of fuckable women to men who then by the underwear for their partners who can not be expected to look like the models who routinely go on crash diets involving only liquids in the run-up to the show so they don't look "fat". It normalises the Patriarchal Fuckability Test on women who have no hope of passing it.

The women-hating and exploitation of Victoria Secret's has become so common place that I don't even notice them anymore but this year they added racism to their bow. One of the themes of the production this year was the calendar and November was represented by a white model wearing a fairly racist signifier of "Indian". The use of a Plains Indian Warbonnett as a signifier for all Native Americans, First Nations, Metis and Inuit people is racist because it is reductive. You can not reduce huge, disparate cultures down to one item which was worn by men who had earned the honour and pretend it isn't anything but culturally insensitive. The cultural appropriation of such item on the objectified body of a white woman is doubly insensitive.

It really isn't that hard to take ten minutes and think about cultural appropriation. It isn't that hard to think about the links of a nearly naked white woman dressed in cultural signifiers of 'Indians' when Native American women are 2.5 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than any other group of women in the US. The majority of the perpetrators of this sexual violence are non-Native men. Yet, the representation of white women dressed in outfits sexualising a construction of Native Americans derived from racist discourse in 'Cowboy and Indian' films has become a trope in our visual culture, one which has been repeated multiple time in the last couple of months. Lana Del Ray's latest video is possibly the most offensive of the recent insurgence in cultural appropriation; interestingly she seems to have received far less backlash than No Doubt or Victoria Secrets. Whilst I don't think No Doubt's apology is a proper apology what with the whole we have non-white friends trope being called up, they at least seem to understand that they have caused offence. Neither Del Ray nor Victoria Secret's appears to have understood at all. No Doubt pulled the video within days of the complaints arising. It seems unbelievably arrogant for Victoria Secrets not to take 10 minutes to rethink the outfit a week later.

And, FFS, using a cultural signifier for 'Indian' in the month of year where the major American holiday is a celebration of their genocide seems, I don't know, really fucking stupid. 

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Misogynistic Advertising Walk of Shame: Gillette Razors; with a side order of Domestic Violence.

I first came across the new Gillette Razor's campaign via Stavver's blog. I just clicked the link, thought WTF and then retweeted. Stavver's already said everything I would have so it seemed redundant to repeat it.  It's the usual vile heteronormative arsehattery which insists that women must pass the Patriarchal Fuckability Test at ALL times. I would have ignored it and continued in my refusal to shave my leg hair. This was until Leah Hardy pointed out that one of the images is of domestic violence. If you click on the mirror, question 4 is this image:

That first image blown up:

That is most definitely an image of a woman screaming whilst her partner's fist is clenched and he is grabbing her. 

The blog It's Just a Hobby suggest we all complain to Gillette here. I will also be complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority. This is an ad campaign that needs to be removed. Gillette needs to be apologise and then donate a very large sum of money to Women's Aid.

UPDATE: Apparently, if you can believe this, Gillette claims that the campaign wasn't meant to go live today [see here]. I'm sure they will be back soon with some piece of faux apology with will blame one employee for making the campaign go "live" without addressing the fact that more than one person will have been involved in this arsehattery from at least two companies: Gillette and the advertising company responsible for the campaign. Whether or not Gillette meant to go "live" is irrelevant at this point. What is relevant is that a large multi-national corporation has created a huge web-based advertising campaign which includes an image of domestic violence as punishment for not shaving one's legs. It doesn't matter how they run it from here, I won't be buying Gillette again. Erm, if I already weren't boycotting them for being the nincompoops responsible for the Proud Sponsor of Mums campaign. Oddly, I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

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How to tell if you're racist:

If you agree with this arsehole, then you're probably a racist. I say probably only insofar as it's equally possible you're just really, really stupid. Tom Brodbeck, of the Winnipeg Sun, has written quite possibly one of the most ridiculous examples of white privilege I've come across in a while. Basically, he's arguing that it's racist for the Manitoba government to focus on the violence experienced by Aboriginal women and develop specific strategies to help these women, despite the fact that they are more likely to experience VAW or be murdered by their partners than non-Aboriginal women. Apparently, developing any strategies which are specifically targeted at one group of incredibly vulnerable women is "racist". 

This is what he actually says about the fact that Aboriginal women are three times more likely to experience violence, in any form, that non-First Nations, Metis and Inuit

But what should any of that matter when it comes to finding more effective policing and public policy strategies to combat the problem of missing and murdered women?
Should police agencies treat missing and murdered aboriginal women differently than women from other ethnicities?

It's pretty fucking obvious that the police already treat missing and murdered Aboriginal women differently than they do missing or murdered white women. After all, does anyone really believe that Robert Pickton would have managed to kill as many women as he did if his victims weren't vulnerable Aboriginal women trapped in prostitution? I don't. 

Thing is, Brodbeck clearly doesn't give a shit about Aboriginal women. No one who cares about the racism and misogyny experienced by Aboriginal women would be so arrogant as to say this:

Singling out missing and murdered aboriginal women is racist, plain and simple. We shouldn’t judge, treat, or deal with people based on their ethnicity.

Nor would they be so arrogant as to quote the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as if it was applied equally to all citizens and residents of Canada. This is just another example of white male privilege trying to minimise and isolate women to prevent us rising up as a class to Smash the Patriarchy. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is just a piece of paper. It is only as good as its enforcement and, frankly, Canada's history of enforcing this legislation is shameful.

We will never be able to Smash the Patriarchy without acknowledging the way it uses racism, homophobia, disabilism and misogyny to isolate women. Acknowledging that Aboriginal women are more likely to be victims of Violence Against Women isn't racist. It's stating the fucking obvious.

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Femen: Because they really bug me

Femen are back in the media once again.* This time they are running about Ikea with their breasts bared to protest Ikea’s decision to edit out all the images of women in their catalogue for the market in Saudi Arabia. Now, I’m quite offended by Ikea’s decision but I’m not sure what protesting in the Ikea in Paris two weeks after the story broke is going to change. In using women's bodies as a canvas of protest, Femen are using some fairly basic signifiers of woman as object. Their message is obscured by the medium of their protest because the medium conforms to the normalised construction of the Patriarchal Fuckability Test. As Exiled Stardust says, getting naked or stripping aren't acts of Feminist defiance or resistance. They are simply appeasement since “(m)en don’t care if you write incendiary messages of revolt all over your naked body, as long as they get to see that body.” Femen's activism using the objectification of women's bodies to make a political point isn't new. It isn't clever. It's just the Patriarchy trying out a new hat. After all, as Megan Murphyhas pointed out, PETA's been doing this shit for years. Their male supporters include a veritable who's who of celebrities with criminal convictions for Violence against Women.

Femen’s use of the female body is a tactic deliberately chosen in order to get recognition in the western media and they seem more interested in the attention than any specific feminist goals. They have already joined the Free Pussy Riot movement and, frankly, there are very few attention-seekers who haven't hopped on that bandwagon. It's proving to be quite a profitable one for everyone but the two women currently being transported to a penal colony. Inna Shevchenko demonstrated her "support" for Pussy Riot by destroying a crucifix in Kiev with a chainsaw. This stunt coincided exactly with the court in Moscow finding Pussy Riot guilty of hooliganism; make of that what you will.

Femen have also occupied the Louvre to protest the rape of a young woman called Mariam by two Tunisian police officers. Personally, I think the women of Tunis taking to the streets is a more important and braver protest than a bunch of topless women running around the Louvre. Equally problematic are Femen's anti-burkha protests. Femen attacked an easy target; veiled Muslim women are some of the most frequently silenced of women's voices. But Femen aren't really doing anything really radical here. Instead, they are just doing exactly what western neo-liberal men do: attack a visible target with little to no power. Running about in front of the Eiffel Tower stripping off burkhas to reveal young, thin white women in their underwear isn't very interesting. Setting up a "bootcamp" in Paris to teach French feminists how to tackle the Patriarchy using tactics developed in the Ukraine is also not very clever. A reversal of the normal imperialism it may be, but it nonetheless shows a rather incredible lack of self-awareness. Thing is, which protests get more coverage? And, which ones really deserve the media attention?

And, this is the problem. The issues Femen claims to want to discuss are important. They are very, very important, particularly the issue of sex trafficking and prostitution in Eastern Europe. The sexual exploitation of vulnerable and poor women is increasing at astronomical rates. But, this isn't what the media is discussing. Femen's insistence on baring their breasts, regardless of what they are actually protesting, just reinforces Patriarchal norms. They have become objects for men to wank over rather than feminist protestors. Whatever message they had is obscured. Instead, their breasts are what are deemed important. 

We won't destroy the Patriarchy by reinforcing its constructions of "acceptable" women. We won't destroy the Patriarchy by targeting one small group of women and demanding that they remove their veil, without even considering the political and cultural structures in which they are either forced or, in some cases, choose to wear the veil. We cannot demand the government of Tunisia tackle the issue of rape by police officers, by running about art galleries naked. We won't change the control that the Church has by chopping down crosses half-naked. Protest needs to be vibrant, engaging and culturally specific but we will not smash the Patriarchy by reinforcing its belief that the only women who matter are those who conform to the Patriarchal Fuckability Test.

As many a wise feminist has said: if the penis is keen, it probably demeans. And, that's the problem with Femen.** Men aren't listening to the message. They are wanking to the image.

*I submitted this piece to the Huffington Post on Monday; just before their servers went down due to Hurricane Sandy. It hasn't been published and I'm assuming they are currently swamped as I haven't had a reply from them. Or, they didn't like it. Either way.

**Apparently, this originally comes from the I Blame the Patriarchy blog. 

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