Shout Out To Guerrilla Girls! Thanks For Keeping It Real

by lmbrown • Posts • Tags: Advertising, art, culture jamming, Guerrilla Girls, Guest Blogger Barbara Mejia, inequalities, Media, Sexism

By Guest Blogger, Barbara Mejia

Naked1989 Shout Out To Guerrilla Girls! Thanks For Keeping It Real

“We’re feminist masked avengers in the tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Wonder Woman and Batman. How do we expose sexism, racism and corruption in politics, art, and pop culture? With facts, humor and outrageous visuals. We reveal the understory, the subtext, the overlooked, and the downright unfair.”

Guerrilla Girls burst on to the scene in the mid 80’s through the unconventional ways they drew attention to the lack of female representation in art. They made posters, hosted workshops and gave lectures, and here’s the curveball, they did it all wearing gorilla masks. I’m a fan of their campaign for public consciousness about the inequalities women face in all facets of our society, especially the art world, not only because of their important message but because of their radical masked avenger attire and because they receive no profit for their activism.

Each Guerrilla Girl takes the name of a famous artist and wears a gorilla mask, bringing humor and a bit of shock value to make their message the center of attention. The act of removing their identities from their activism ensures the message and information speaks for itself, optimizing the voice behind the mask and serving as a filter for society’s need to critique and judge female appearance. And this is what I love the most: the gorilla mask serves as a majestic metaphor for the fury that women facing invisibility and adversity carry, but are forced to suppress.

Their posters draw attention to the inequalities in the art world. There are so many amazingly talented female artists, but the art world has historically and continues to use the female body as a commodity. One can only imagine the difficulty a female artist faces when her profession views her gender as a prop for beauty and when her body of work doesn’t match up to what a male-defined art world most values.

As someone who works hard to be conscious of the ads and messages that are fed to me via popular media, I find it refreshing to see creative campaigns like the Guerrilla Girls. Their genuine goal to educate and empower the public and to make people more culturally and socially conscious of the inequalities that remain in our immediate surroundings inspires me.

A campaign motivated simply by the desire to educate and bring awareness to people is a rare occurrence in our capitalistic society, where the likes of Dove and Pantene sell products in the guise of making us aware of the adversities and social pressures women face. I don’t like the lingering feeling that I have to buy shampoo and soap in solidarity of their campaign. I don’t like the thought that buying their products to improve my appearance supports a campaign telling me that appearances don’t and shouldn’t matter.

This is a shout out to Guerrilla Girls, the original culture jammers. Thanks for keeping it real. Keep taking the country by storm!

Let’s Hear It From The Boys: 1 is 2 Many

by lmbrown • Posts, Uncategorized • Tags: 1 is 2 Many, Domestic Violence, Family Violence Project, Guest blogger Maggie Rooney, male allies, Sexual Assault

Guest blog by Maggie Rooney

dulehillPSAMAIN LargeWide Lets Hear It From The Boys: 1 is 2 Many

Dulé Hill: “One sexual assault is one too many. My desire for this PSA is that it will heighten awareness and in turn be a catalyst for more prevention.”

The 1 is 2 Many Campaign reports three statistics:

1 in 5 young women will be a victim of sexual assault while they are in college;
1 in 9 teen girls will be forced to have sex;
1 in 10 teens will be hurt on purpose by someone they are dating.

The Campaign argues rightly that we have to fix this problem and recently released a PSA in collaboration with the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault addressing the dire need to put an end to sexual abuse and assault. The PSA stars a number of famous men, including President Obama, Vice President Biden, Daniel Craig, Benicio Del Toro, Dulé Hill, Seth Meyers and Steve Carell. These men touch on the prevalence of the issue, the need to speak up when a tragedy is occurring, and the need for men to stop victimizing women.

I volunteer for the Family Violence Project in Maine as a hotline volunteer for victims and friends/families of victims of domestic violence. It is a 24-hour hotline where I am an advocate for anyone who needs assistance in almost all situations from a basic conversation about a worrisome issue, to creating a safety plan for immediate emergency help and shelter/legal information. After hearing from so many victims of domestic abuse and assault I know that this problem needs to be widely addressed, and I am so excited about this PSA.

The male voices and faces in this PSA are especially powerful. For years, abuse and sexual assault prevention workers have been trying to get men to speak out about the issue, as men are primarily responsible for this crime. Although only time will tell if this PSA makes a difference, the power of men speaking out is crucial for reaching out to other men. It matters that these men say publicly that they do not want to be part of the problem. It matters that they identify what’s wrong with this situation and these statistics and that they refuse to blame girls and women. This is a problem that cannot be taken lightly, and it is encouraging to know that men are now willing to commit publicly to be part of the solution.

The Ugly Reality About Beauty Standards

by lmbrown • Posts, Uncategorized • Tags: Advertising, Beauty, Guest blog Maddie Wadington, makeup, marketing, Media, perceptions of beauty, Photoshop, stereotypes

By Guest Blogger Maddie Wadington

If you’ve been reading Time Magazine, The Guardian, Glamour, or just about any popular magazine or newspaper of late, you’ve seen reports of a new study that compares men and women’s perceptions of beauty. The researchers asked both men and women to judge which photo of a model, wearing various amounts of makeup, was the most attractive to them, which photo would be the most attractive to other men, and which photo would be the most attractive to other women. Both men and women believed that the models wearing more makeup would be judged as more attractive by men. Interestingly, that wasn’t the case. Results showed that more women than men preferred the model wearing more makeup.

So what’s going on here? The researchers conclude that women are holding themselves to a standard of beauty that does not exist. Well, yes, that sounds right. But in spite of their findings, these researchers assume this standard of beauty is created and maintained solely by men, reflecting their version of attractiveness. This doesn’t make sense to me. We’re bombarded 24-7 with photoshopped beauty ideals, so doesn’t media play an overwhelmingly large role, not only in the creation of this “make believe” version of beauty but also in maintaining this standard in girls’ and women’s everyday lives?

Sure, maybe there are more men making decisions about what images are created and sold, but are they doing this because of what they individually like or because they know what sells to women—what makes women anxious enough to say, “I want what she’s having?” Isn’t the bottom line all about marketing and money and grabbing women’s attention (and as we’ve seen from the likes of Veet’s recent ad campaign, anything goes). Isn’t the corporate bottom line and not individual male desire responsible for perpetuating these unrealistic beauty standards?

It is also interesting to note that the Time Magazine article that I read about this study was titled: “Science Shows Men Like Women With Less Makeup.” But I have to wonder, why is the emphasis placed on how men prefer women? What about considering how women view other women? From my experience, girls and women compare their own beauty to that of other girls and women (just like girls and women do in the media). Could the results of this study-women preferring the model with more makeup—simply be due to the pressures they feel to look like the models they see in magazines?

When we think about how males and females perceive beauty, it’s important to consider more than just the physical attractiveness between men and women. In our society, there are so many more factors affecting what we think of as attractive: like media, marketing, and the ways they impact our views of each other. This isn’t just about gender or even about biology. Only when we consider the larger forces at play here can we affect how these unrealistic beauty standards affect our relationships and how we feel about ourselves. Only then can our voices can be heard.

A Before and After Reversal

by lmbrown • Posts • Tags: body positivity, coalition, culture jam, Eating Disorders, guest blogger Amanda Carbonneau

By Guest Blogger Amanda Carbonneau

I came across this ad for a national eating disorder awareness week on Facebook that showed a girl’s eating disorder treatment “before/after” picture with a link to her blog about body positivity. Not only did the photo serve to culture jam the usual before-after ads that show a girl losing weight, this girl was proudly showing off her new and healthy body.

More importantly, this girl, Brittany, wrote a blog about eating disorders and invited other girls to share and contribute from their own experience. From the comments and blog posts it’s clear that the readers were engaged in a dialogue about body positivity and health.

This is great. But one thing bothers me. The website positions Brittany as their “brave” leader. She is brave and it’s important to have a leader to motivate others, but I worry that girls will fail to recognize the help that Brittany received from treatment. Not only should we acknowledge the hard work Brittany has done but girls struggling also need to hear about those who supported her just as she supports others now. No girl struggling with disordered eating can become healthy without the support of others!

I love Brittany’s before-after culture jam and how her blog builds coalition between girls. However, I think it’s important also to encourage girls to “culture jam” the single heroine story and include those who support them in their narratives of strength and bravery. It’s important for girls to learn its okay to seek support from others, even if no one is talking about it. People don’t become heroines all on their own.

Talking Sex

by yasthatannoyingfeminist • Posts • Tags: Abstinence, Classroom, Confusion, Embarassment, Fear, Gendered Expectations, Guest blog, Guest Post, Health, Internet, Questions, Relationships, Scarleteen, Sex, Sex Education, Sexual Pleasure, STDs, Teachers

By Guest Blogger Janie O’Halloran

Can you remember a time in your life when you felt so incredibly uncomfortable and awkward? I sure can. I was sitting in my ninth grade health class during the sexual education unit. Our class was taught by Mr. H, the most feared and mysterious man who walked the halls of our high school. He was also the head coach for the varsity football team, and exactly the kind of man I wanted to go to for all of my burning questions about sex−not.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure that Mr. H was a quality guy, just not the guy I felt comfortable asking what it means to ‘pop one’s cherry’? So I didn’t ask, and no one else in my class did, either. I think all of us were scared that our curiosity would suggest we were either having sex or thinking about having sex− two things that none of us, boy or girl, wanted Mr. H to know about us. As you can imagine, a lot of the questions we had about sex remained as questions.

Like many schools in the U.S., our sex education stressed abstinence and the plethora of STDs we were bound to get if we did engage in sexual activity. There was so much missing in our health class conversations. Important stuff, like relationships, sexual pleasure, and desire. Nobody talked about these experiences and feelings so we weren’t sure they were okay. Any hint of desire was about adolescent boys —assumptions that they were innately inflicted with “sex on the brain.” They wanted it. They were naturally horny and they simply couldn’t help it. But what were we? Our desire was missing. We were passive, the cause and objects of boys’ desire. So we learned by our absence that if one of us engaged in sex it was not because we wanted to, but because of a boy’s unrelenting testosterone.

Fortunately for girls out there who are experiencing their own Mr. H, there’s a way to fill in this missing information about ourselves. Scarleteen.com is an online “sex education for the real world” that every girl should know about. This website provides a place where girls and young women can engage in a free and open discussion about sex, filling in all of the topics left out of traditional sex education classes, like girls’ sexual wants and desires. Scarleteen allows girls to ask questions about sex, take polls, and gives us an opportunity to share and read the sex testimonials of other girls.

Reading this amazing site makes me more certain then ever that we need a discourse of girls’ desire in our schools’ sex education classes, not only because there are still so many girls without access to the internet, but because this conversation is fundamental to what makes us human. Perhaps if I had known about Scarleteen when I was in Mr. H’s class, then I wouldn’t have gone through most of my teenage years thinking there was actually a “cherry” that I was terrified to pop.

Bring Back Our Girls

by yasthatannoyingfeminist • Announcements, Posts • Tags: #BringBackOurGirls

Dove’s Definition of Beauty Exposed

by lmbrown • Posts, Uncategorized • Tags: Axe, Dove Real Beauty Sketches, Kylie VanBuren, marketing, Media, perfection, physical perfection

By Guest Blogger Kylie VanBuren

When the Dove Real Beauty Sketches Campaign came out last year, I watched the video and cried. I’ll admit that it was a rainy night, and it had been a long week.

I forwarded the video to a friend after I watched it, with this note, “It’s nothing complicated, pretty much what you would expect, but maybe it’s expected because it is this simple. Anyways I found it powerful.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE

The video touched me, yet even in this emotional state, I found the ending to be very obvious. I expected the women to say bad things about themselves, and I expected them to have their opinions changed and to realize that they were actually beautiful after all.

The next day the conversation came up with another friend who had just seen the video, and I mentioned that I guessed the theme of the video. She pointed out that it was a little weird that I could figure it out so easily, and her comment got me thinking.

I began to question why the theme was so clear to me. And why did it affect me so much to see other women tear themselves down so easily, realize they were beautiful all along, and that they had work to do on their self-esteem. This is the question I come back to again. What is Dove doing and why does the company continually want us to realize our outer beauty? Who defines beauty? I mean, instead of just being happy with ourselves (something I still think is really important). Shouldn’t we also be questioning the whole beauty industrial complex, of which Dove is a part, and how they make us feel bad if we don’t feel good about how we look?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRXe7KUQxYI

I think so. I found myself thinking about the Dove campaign more thoroughly, reading critiques of it, and watching this spoof video, and I realized that Dove is still pushing the idea of physical, outer beauty above all else. They are selling Dove; associating being happy with your body and finding your own, “natural” beauty, with the products they are selling.

This is bad enough, but do you know that Dove’s parent company is Unilever? What other beauty product company does Unilever own? AXE. AXE is marketed in clearly sexist ways that degrade and objectify women. AXE sells women to men. Dove sells beauty to women.

Axe The Dirtier You Get 300x148 Dove’s Definition of Beauty Exposed

Axe Any Excuse to Get Dirty ad

What kind of beauty? Physical beauty. The kind of outer beauty that women must be obsessed with and reduced to. It does not matter how many advances we make in the corporate world, or how smart we are, or how powerful we are. We must still achieve the unattainable happiness of our own perfection; and Dove will help get us there because Dove is different. Except that it’s not, it’s just another marketing campaign. It’s just trying to tear us down.

1c63c0e4c3e0a2d4dd93d2f64dddf848 1024x642 Dove’s Definition of Beauty Exposed

10 Companies that Run the World

Why I Was So Hesitant to Take on the Feminist Label, and What It Means to Me

by lmbrown • Posts • Tags: activism, Audre Lorde, F-Word, feminism, Grace Dickinson, Guest Post, Labels

Guest Blog By Grace Dickinson

The absolute most important thing to know about feminism is that I can define it for myself. For so long I struggled with adopting the label feminist—The F-word. While at the end of the day I knew I believed in most of the ideals feminism supports, the notion of being a feminist always sparked worry that I would be seen as a bitchy, power hungry, angry woman—something I knew I wasn’t. I know a lot of people share this image, and, while there are definitely those types of people out there, it is important, no, vital to know that they do not define feminism. What I have come to realize is that feminism, activism, all of those words that seem to encompass feminist work and ideals, can actually be embodied in small, individual, personal actions and decisions.

What I mean to say is that feminism is not a burn your bra belief that women should rule the world. Feminism can be as easy as sticking up for another girl being sexually or racially harassed, even if you aren’t friends with her. Feminism can be as simple as deciding not to use derogatory words about other girls such as fat, dyke (used as an insult), or slut. I used to fear the feminist label because I thought boys and other girls would call me a bitch, but since when did it become bitchy to want equality? To paraphrase of the incomparable feminist Audre Lorde, if we don’t speak up now, for ourselves, no one will speak for us. If we don’t act now, will we later regret our silence?

This doesn’t mean every girl everywhere needs to start calling herself a feminist, but it is important to know that in it’s truth, the movement calls for equality. And while we don’t all need to take on big causes or march in protest to be heard, we cannot be silent. The facts tell us that girls are too often afraid to speak up in class for fear of being called bossy; that by middle school, girls worry that participating in sports will mean others see them as lesbian, like that’s somehow a bad thing. Challenging these limited conceptions doesn’t have to mean arranging sit-ins and waving flags of protest. I’m learning that it can be as simple as sticking up for other girls’ right to be who they are and want to be without labels.

At the end of the day, no matter what your beliefs and actions, it is essential that we don’t shy away from feminism simply because of it’s misconceptions; because whether I decide to organize a conversation on sexual assault or simply support those girls and women around me, that’s feminism, and I’m damn proud of it.