Only In A Woman’s World: Frito Lay Goes Girly
There I was happily watching CNN this morning when they reported that women are now no longer seen as a niche market. It seems that the recession depression has largely effected men and companies are now realizing that it is women that have the disposable income and the discretionary power to spend.
Rather than using this as an opportunity to validate women, companies have resorted to ridiculous essentialist pitches to garner our attention. If you identify as female you must love the colour pink, fluffy clouds, and rainbows. The utility of the object in question is irrelevant as long as it is pretty, cause you know how all of us wimminez just need everything to be pastel and cutesy.
While it is necessary to some degree to draw on large generalizations to effectively market, creating a single monolithic representation of what constitutes woman is extremely problematic. The images that we see end up not being about our struggles or our triumphs but womanhood as it is understood through the patriarchal lens. Advertising in this way quickly becomes yet another tool that is marshalled by patriarchy to discipline women into perform a gender essentialist, submissive femininity.
Each year more women seek post secondary and graduate education. We are entering fields that were once male dominated, crashing through glass ceilings at every turn and yet Frito Lay has decided that the best possible way to appeal to us, is to pander to our so called obsessive need to count every calorie because of a fixation on our bodies. These generalizations are not only essentialist, they are highly demeaning.
Frito Lay has even gone on to make webisodes in which these shallow women are featured.
Notice how every single item is either low calorie or low in fat. Women of course never just pig out cause hey we all need a good junk food and pyjama day from time to time. Apparently we are racked endlessly with guilt every time we decide to eat.
Women are so much more than what the advertising industry has constructed us to be. These images are not innocuous, rather they set up damaging ideas that translate into the devaluation of women. In a world in which not conforming to ideal body standards often translates into shaming, and less employment opportunities (read: feminization of poverty) such mode of advertising must be challenged. Commercials like this are made to benefit patriarchy and we internalize these images without thought or resistance we are assuming this unbalanced definition of womanhood.
Just like every other social organization patriarchy is highly dependent on the labour, finances and support of women We collude daily in small ways in our own oppression often without being cognizant that we are contributing to our own second class status. While we certainly do not control the media we do have the power to eliminate or reduce the purchasing of items that serve to create woman as the eternal ‘other’; we not only owe this to ourselves but to our daughters.
We cannot be post feminist until we move away from the idea that we do not deserve to be treated seriously. Since the advertising agency has found a new belief in our purchasing power, it is essential that we leverage this to ensure that the degree to which we are constructed as flighty, brainless, narcissistic beings is reduced. A world in which the full depth of womanhood is equally represented would lend itself to greater opportunities, and a reduction in the degree to which patriarchy manages to maintain its control. Woman is a complex identity and can never be fully appreciated as long as it is continually equated with flower, pastels and diet materials.
Cross posted from Womanist Musings
Confronting Hyper Sexuality In The Black Community
As the mother of a young child who is approaching his tween years, thoughtful consideration of our social dialogue as it relates to sex and sexuality has been of great personal concern. Along with assuring that my child receives accurate information to make the correct decisions for him, ensuring that he understands that even the options that are available to him are strictly a result of his race and gender are an essential part of an evolving conversation on sex and sexuality.
When educating black children about sex, it is not enough to speak about the mechanics of the act. Though it is an absolute necessity to stress safe sex in a time where AIDS has reached a truly epidemic stature within our communities, the why we choose to engage in sex can and should be an equally important conversation.
Children come to an understanding of our world by interacting and confronting the agents of socialization. They will receive clear and direct instructions on performing gender, race and sexuality. These intersections are internalized and accepted as normative, despite the fact that they are often damaging on multiple levels.
Black children in particular must deal with the social idea that their bodies are hyper sexual. This can be seen in the overtly sexualized images of black women in rap videos, or the black male as rapist construction. In both of the aforementioned examples, sexuality is perverted in that it is presented as overly aggressive, and existing outside of normalized engagement.
The virgin/whore dichotomy is continually reified through the lens of race wherein white women exist with the construction of purity and the black female is reduced to the ever wanton Jezebel. This construction has its foundation in slavery. It was meant to justify the repeated rape of black women by their white male slave owners.
Though we have long since moved beyond slavery as a condition of living in the broader culture, its shadow continues to interject itself into our discourse about sex and sexuality. Young black girls quickly internalize the idea that their bodies exist for consumption based in the falsehood that they are continually desirous of sex. This construction removes the agency from the decision to have sex and implies that sex must occur because that is the foundation of the black female identity. It further reifies a hierarchy of beings wherein the black female is routinely located at the bottom. Bell Hooks theorizes that the black woman has no institutional other, and when we examine the discourse of sex and gender what immediately becomes clear is that the politics of colonization and oppression continually manifest in ways in which foster a negative sexual identity in black females.
Reducing black women to simply sexual beings without agency or autonomy over their physical beings translates into high rates of teen pregnancy and a low cultural self esteem. If your identity is based on sexual performance rather than achievement in education, it perpetuates the idea that success can only be achieved by conforming to the role of eternal Jezebel. This creates an unhealthy sexuality in that sex is no longer something one engages in to share pleasure or manifest a loving relationship, but to assert a form of self worth.
While a healthy sexuality is important to achieve a well rounded sense of self, the overvaluation of it is detrimental. Reducing women to what they do with their vaginas rather than with their brains serves patriarchal interests. For black women who have a history of slavery the perpetuation of the Jezebel complex amounts to the continued colonization of black female bodies.
This form of sexuality is also heterosexist nature in that it constructs women as existing solely for the purposes of male sexual pleasure, while ignoring the existence of same sex loving women. Lesbian love is delegitimized because it does not actively serve patriarchy; and therefore its erasure is not only a slight on black women, but on all women that identify as lesbian. Queer culture is very much a part of the black community, but when sexuality is controlled by outside forces instead of individually, certain identities become invisible if it is deemed that their existence does not help to maintain the race/class/gender hierarchy.
The model held for the black male is quite similar to the black female. It once again finds it origins in slavery; wherein the black male was constructed as the sexually aggressive savage to promote distrust between black men and white women. In this way white men are assured their place at the top of the race and gender hierarchy, while constructing themselves as the saviour of white women and the socially evolved masters of black men.
The hyper masculine sexuality that is presented as a model to black men can be seen in rap videos, and throughout mainstream media. The black male sexuality that is offered is one that is desirous of continues conquest; wherein the pleasure of the act itself is over looked. Black men are perceived not to engage in sex because it is an act of intimacy between two beings; rather it is construed as an act that reifies their masculinity. In a world where in the black male is continually reduced to an exotic “other” combating such images can be difficult. If masculinity is derived through sexual conquest, then this reinforces a problematized identity.
Just as same sex loving is detached from black female sexuality, a queer identity is similarly not associated with black male sexuality. Black masculinity is forever measuring itself against that of the white male. Due to the historic imbalance caused by racism any form of sexuality that is deemed “socially deviant” is actively denied. This has given rise to living a life on the “down low”. Though black males are certainly not the only ones to lead closeted lives, the tendency to deny sexual orientation is higher because of the association of black masculinity and sexual conquest. This is not healthy and is ultimately damaging to the individual on many levels.
We have a tendency to speak about sex as though it is divorced from other social elements, yet it is one of the most complex forms of human interactions. When we ignore the complexities of race, class and gender in our discussions it has a tendency to minimize the ways in which different groups of people not only understand but experience sexuality. What must be paramount when we seek to educate our youth is that they be made to recognize that though they are the products of social construction, as individuals they exist with ability to transcend norms and create a sexuality that is not only more positive, but a reflection of their right to possess a sexuality in which the onus is on individual agency.
When we begin to discuss sexuality with black children, it is important to make connections to the ways in which racism has affected our understanding of what it is to be black, while at the same time exist as a sexual being. Reclaiming sexuality from the race infused dialog would foster a more positive understanding of what it is to be sexual thus encouraging youth to see this as a decision that is not synonymous with claiming their gender identity, but in sharing an experience of intimacy with another.
PETA, You Just Make It So Easy
When many people hear someone start talking about PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, many of their minds immediately start freaking out, sending out red flags and wanting to scream ‘NOOOOOO’ at the top of their lungs. The biggest reason for this is because PETA is made up of a bunch of hypocrites; people who believe that animals shouldn’t be mistreated in any way yet don’t seem to give a shit about their fellow humans and even go as far as to say that people shouldn’t buy pets at pet stores because it is the equivalent of buying a human being as a slave. People also shouldn’t call their pets ‘pets’ because again, they make the comparison between having pets and owning slaves. I don’t know about you, but my cat has never once sparked something in my brain that made me start comparing her to owning slaves; but hey, that just may be me–But I doubt it.
A lot of people hate PETA, some people think it should even be classified as a terrorist group, which I have to say, I can agree with. The thing is–When it comes to organized groups, some members of a particular group can get a little skewed and a little extreme, hence describing these people as extremists or describing an entire organization, as PETA has proved itself to be, as an extremist organization. (Think of the pro-lifers who deem it necessary and effective to blow up Planned Parenthood clinics regardless of whether or not they actually perform abortions at that location.) You may be thinking to yourself right about now “But wait, just because members of a particular organization go all loony and start taking their efforts to dangerous territory that doesn’t mean these organizations are necessarily bad!” And you’d be correct with that assumption. Just because a wide range of PETA supporters feel it’s A-OK to tell small children that their mothers are going to burn in hell because they wear fur coats or post videos on their websites from PETA that show images that may be triggering, offensive and are just downright disgusting that could be seen by a young audience without as much as a warning posted before the video, it doesn’t mean that the organization as a whole is bad. However, when it comes to PETA, their marketing tactics are not only skewed, but they are so horrendous and in general bad taste that even when they try to explain or stand by their tactics, they come off as arrogant, obnoxious, ignorant and/or belligerent–And that’s being nice. How they choose to market themselves as an organization is their fault and theirs alone and when it comes to what ads they choose to release to the public, it is downright appalling.
PETA has put out severely sexist and just plain baffling ads that they should just stop trying to explain their tactics and simply come up with another way to tote their hypocritical bullshit to the public or hey, just stopping their organization all together is another viable option; I know of a lot of people who would be rejoicing if this were to happen.
After so many people have had negative reactions to their ads, PETA took it to the media in order to clear up any misconceptions people had about why they use naked women in the majority of their ads while the rest of their ads are degrading towards all people; all people who aren’t brainwashed by the many clever methods the organization uses to lure people in and keep them yolked and asking for more, that is.
When it comes to the unapologetic and purely sexist ads PETA uses to get their name out into society, they attempted to defend the nature of their ad to The New York Times, saying:
While cruelty to animals is a serious matter that should elicit widespread public outrage, efforts to reach the public through more serious means often fall on deaf ears in a world in which sex sells and there are both a war and an economic downturn.
Basically they just come right out and say it–PETA wants people to see their ads, have people say “Hey, hot chick.” and move on. That is what happens when you repeatedly use naked models and actresses in your ads; your message is not heard. Their comment also makes it sound as if they had used other types of marketing that simply didn’t work; however, that doesn’t seem to be the case as I went digging around for PETA ads.
In this appalling ad which came out in 2000, we can see that PETA has been using the technique of ridiculing women for the past 8 years at least.
Yeah ladies, how dare you go natural and opt not to shave your pubic region. Even PETA thinks it’s disgusting! This ad actually seems to go against the message they’re trying to get across and just using this ad as an excuse to ridicule women who don’t shave or wax and in turn, not living up to the social expectancy. The right way to go about this ad would be to say for ladies who do go all natural to feel good in doing that and think of animals whose fur is used for making fur coats, fur-lined gloves or whatever and make the conscious decision to not wear fut just because women know how good it may feel to them to not go through the torturous and painful act of waxing. But that’s just me, you know, not looking at it from the sexist goggles.
Ms. Magazine received 150 letters when they asked for their reader’s opinion on the above PETA ad and out of those 150 letters, only 6 agreed that PETA was on the right track and did not deem their ad to be sexist or discriminatory towards women and from my snap judgment, I’d have to assume that those 6 people happened to be PETA supporters.
PETA also likes to use images of naked actresses, or in this specific case, failed actresses with one big hit that did nothing but make her come off as a complete idiot–A lot. A recent 30 second ad spot they put out featuring Alicia Silverstone appeared pretty much everywhere for a good week or so.
The ad spot was put on websites and blogs of supporters and also on sites with webmasters who, like myself, wonder about the credibility of an organization who puts something out that a lot of people most likely turned the sound off for to watch and got pretty much the same effect from it–Hot chick, naked, pool…scene from Wild Things?
Other ads that show the true sexist core of PETA include:
The third ad in particular looks more like it came out of a page of Maxim, but again, PETA wants to shock people, they want people to look at an ad that looks as if it should have came out of a softcore porn magazine, enjoy the image of a size 0 woman and not grasp that the fact that there is even text on the image. The latest ad to be put out by PETA is this little gem:
That is now two ads with the text ‘Be comfortable in your own skin’ written across it and by the nature of those ads in conjunction with the others makes me sense some sort of odd connection; that being the size of the women on these ads.
PETA wants women to be comfortable in their own skin and to lay off the buying and selling of animal fur. Okay, got it. Now, why is it that these ads specifically tell women to be comfortable in their own skin but only use women who are sizes 0-2, muscular and socially accepted as being the ideal, beautiful woman? Why not get a woman who is vegetarian or vegan to pose for their ads who looks like they actually eat? PETA is basically saying that yes, you should let animals keep their fur because you should be comfortable in your own skin–as long as you’re a size 2 and conventionally beautiful. There is not one other ad from PETA that uses women of varied body shape or size. This assumption is obvious since all of these ads have this fact resonating through them and not one ad from PETA has used a male nude body. PETA obviously respects the rights of animals over women since time and time again, PETA continues to disrespect women and simply throw their naked bodies up on an ad and say “Look at me.”
PETA’s public protests and demonstrations are also a glimpse at the sexist ideas they give their supporters to take part in such as topless women under plastic wrap and fake blood with a label reading ‘Human Flesh’ in an attempt to give the public passersby a shock by reenacting how meat is packaged. A nearly naked woman painted like a snake to bring attention to the way snake skins are harvested. Girls in yellow bikinis while holding up egg-shaped signs that read “Chicks Suffer for Eggs.” And perhaps the display that really rubbed me the wrong way–The one and only time a woman of a varying size is pictured at a PETA demonstration “just happens to be” a demonstration on pigs.
So thank you PETA, for making it so easy for people to not take you seriously, think your organization should be labeled as a terrorist group, shove images of conventionally beautiful women down our throats and objectify more women with one ill-conceived cause than I thought possible. Your organization isn’t worth the time I put into writing this post, but what you stand for needs to be seen.
You’re Just Not Pretty Enough
What’s the difference between the two girls pictured above? Well, the little girl on the left, seven year old Yang Peiyi, sang a rendition of “Ode to the Motherland” to be performed at the opening ceremony of the Olympics. The little girl on the right, however, nine year old Lin Miaoke, was the girl who performed; lip syncing to Yang’s voice.
Well that’s odd! What’s even more astounding is that fact that the musical director claims that this was done in the best interest of the country and that Yang was simply not as “flawless” as Lin.
“The reason for this is that we must put our country’s interest first. The girl appearing on the picture must be flawless in terms of her facial expression and the great feeling she can give to people.”
How, exactly, was telling a seven year old girl that she wasn’t pretty enough to be seen by the public for the best interest of the country? That is pure bullshit and downright disgusting that even at such a young age little girls are being told that they aren’t living up to the standards set by their country when it comes to being pretty.
Reason number 852 why China should be ashamed of itself.
The True Price of Beauty is Needles in Your Face
I have been a big fan of Target Women done by Sarah Haskins who has developed quite the following with her hilarious and spot on humor about products and media targeted at women.
So far, Sarah Haskins has brought us the ridiculousness how all women are angry because of Hillary Clinton losing the presidential candidacy and how McCain and Obama want us for our votes and target us on basic cable and think “Well all women watch Army Wives, Ellen, The View and insert other television shows that are popular among women here and so if we put out PSA’s during those shows, they will have to vote for me!” We’ve also learned about the hilarious and stereotypical nature of WE, The Women’s Channel and how we, as women, all flock to shows about weddings and we’ve also seen several commercials about yogurt and how all women love yogurt and there’s never a bad time to have some, even if you’re at a wedding reception, which I believe was the first Target Women feature.
And now, ladies, we have the horrible fact of aging! Oh no, wrinkles! Not being looked at as sexy anymore because oh no, you’ve aged and now everything is ruined!
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Out Campaign
The OUT Campaign allows individuals to let others know they are not alone. It can also be a nice way of opening a conversation and help to demolish the negative stereotypes of atheists. Let the world know that we are not about to go away and that we are not going to allow those that would condemn us to push us into the shadows.
