Scotland on Rape - "No, Not Ever"

Transcript:

A scene of a party. A pale blond woman in her 20s stands talking to two men, one pale and one with darker skin. She wears a black top and sparkly blue skirt, and all parties hold drinks in their hands and appear to be having a good time.

Woman: (laughing playfully) You’re terrible! (laughs) You’re so bad! Shut up!

Cut to two presumably white men across the room.

Man One: (looks at woman, sucks in air between his teeth) Check out the skirt! She’s asking for it.

Man Two: (laughs)

Cut to scene of the same woman in a department store. She pulls two skirts off the rack, one the sparkly blue skirt she wears at the party, and takes turns holding up each one to her hips. A sales assistant, a pale middle-aged woman, walks up to her.

Sales Assistant: Can I help?

Woman: Yeah, thanks. I’m going out tonight and I want to get raped. (smiles) I need a skirt that will encourage a guy to have sex with me against my will. (holds up each skirt again)

Sales Assistant: (smiles eagerly and folds arms across chest) The blue one. Definitely the blue.

Woman: (nods and smiles)

Woman turns and directly faces camera, with a sarcastic look on her face.

Woman: As if.

Male Voiceover: Nobody asks to be raped. Ever.

more at The Curvature

What Tami Said: Social capital and denying the pain of black women

This is SOOO good. I hope you will read it! Plleeeezzzz!

What Tami Said: Social capital and denying the pain of black women

Girls Gone Anti-Feminist -- In These Times

Girls Gone Anti-Feminist -- In These Times

This may be the best analysis of "fun feminism" I have yet read. This is REALLY good!

Enlightened sexism sells the line that it is precisely through women’s calculated deployment of their faces, bodies, attire, and sexuality that they gain and enjoy true power— power that is fun, that men will not resent, and indeed will embrace. True power here has nothing to do with economic independence or professional achievement: it has to do with getting men to lust after you and other women to envy you. Enlightened sexism is especially targeted to girls and young women and emphasizes that now that they “have it all,” they should focus the bulk of their time and energy on being hot, pleasing men, competing with other women, and shopping.

Enlightened sexism is a manufacturing process that is constantly produced by the media. Its components—anxiety about female achievement; renewed and amplified objectification of young women’s bodies and faces; dual exploitation and punishment of female sexuality; dividing of women against each other by age, race and class; and rampant branding and consumerism—began to swirl around in the early 1990s, consolidating as the dark star it has become in the early 21st century....

This essay was adapted from Susan J. Douglas’ new book, Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done (Times Books, March).

Finally, A Push-Up Panty for the Penis (NSFW)

Finally, A Push-Up Panty for the Penis (NSFW)

No, seriously!

Little Girls Wear Whisks

Little Girls Wear Whisks

I Wonder How Much Laundry the Average Team USA Dad Will Do?

via sociological images, which I LOOOVE.

Tide laundry detergent company wonders how much laundry the average TEAM USA mom will do. Those of us who are into gender equality think....

I Wonder How Much Laundry the Average Team USA dad Will Do?

Cupcakes for Men. No, Seriously. Cupcakes for Men.

Cupcakes for Men. No, Seriously. Cupcakes for Men.

Unbelievable. Everything has to be certified masculine (sort of like certified organic) before men can join in.

Womanist Musings

Womanist Musings

I (still) hate racist, sexist PETA. Aretha Franklin as "bigfoot?" REALLY? PETA has a LONG history of this kind of stuff. PETA just loooves animals, but apparently they hate women.

Men Have No Genitals; Women are Genitals Only

Very interesting.

Men Have No Genitals; Women are Genitals Only

Girls Need Less Power?

"Leigh snapped this picture of a Toys ‘R Us catalog. He noticed that, for both microscopes and telescopes, the version coded “girl” (i.e., the pink one) is the least powerful one (600x magnification vs. 900 or 1200x and 90x vs. 250 or 525x). Coincidence?"

Girls Need Less Power?

Feminizing Women’s Sports Teams

I think this is really interesting. It is about the ongoing trend to "feminize" female athletes. College recruitment materials like the one shown below picture women athletes in evening gowns and, well, doing things OTHER than playing their sports, which is clearly NOT the case with male players.

Feminizing Women's Sports Teams

Nine Deuce on New Burger King ad

Nine Deuce at Rage Against the Man-chine blog analyses a new Burger King ad - and it seems someone really is in need of some analysis. The title of the piece is "Burger King to Customers - Eat a Dick." Do check it out - seriously!

Penny Red on the retro fetish for women's crafts

This is really good. She calls it "Here, Have This Humorless Festive Rant." The actual article is a wonderful rant, very interesting. She discusses how, in these tough economic times, there is a media push to make baking and crafting appealing new money savers - but only for women!

OH, you MUST be Kidding!

SitCom Role Reversal

You know how every sitcom has a hot and together wife married to an incompetent, oaf of a husband? What would it look like with the roles reveresed? This shows how the stereotypes are insulting to both men and women. In fact, I have long thought that this genre in particular is unfair to men. Who ARE these men who can't cook or clean or remember a wedding anniversary? These male characters don't represent any men I know.



from Sociological Images.

h/t feministing.com

Sexist New Reebok Commercial & Other Ads

Some things just drive me crazy!

McCain's Mansions : The Real Elitist

From Brave New Films

More from Robert Greenwald at Brave New Films: The Real McCain

And my mother, a Democrat for Hillary, told me last week that Obama is an elitist. I told her about him trying to attend the 2000 convention and having his credit card rejected, how he owed lots of student loans until two years ago when his books became best-sellers, how as a child Michelle and her family lived in a one room apartment. So then my mom got sarcastic and said, "Okay, you're right. He owed student loans so he's wonderful, he's a god, and he'll be a great president." Uh-no. The point I successfully made was not that he's wonderful or a god but simply that he was not elitist - certainly no more so than Bill Clinton, and she adores Bill Clinton.

Yet again, whatever mental acrobatics it takes to avoid voting for a black man, Mother (see previous post on the old family plantation - I guess the family has moved away from River Road, but we haven't really moved away from the plantation, have we, Mother?).

2008 - Solidarity

released on February 14, 2008:

African-Americans to Conduct Citizens' Arrest in Louisiana of employer accused of modern-day slavery practices:

Today, a group of African Americans in Amite, Louisiana will stand in solidarity with about thirty Mexican farm workers who have faced an on-going situation of forced labor and indentured servitude, providing another example of temporary foreign workers enduring modern-day slavery in the US.

These men, originally from San Luis Potis, Mexico, are documented workers who came to this country on an H2A (agricultural) guest worker program. They paid recruiters in their homeland, were transported to Louisiana and delivered to a prominent farmer and storeowner whom they have been working for since September 2007. The delegation of African Americans, along with the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice (NOWCRJ), will conduct a citizen’s arrest of the yet to be identified local farmer and storeowner....

The group of African Americans conducting the citizen’s arrest will seek to arrest this tyrant and interrupt the slave-like conditions in the undisclosed town close to New Orleans. Organizers will demand the return of the workers’ passports and seek the intervention of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Department of Labor.

Louisiana has codified the citizen’s arrest, allowing private persons to conduct an arrest if they become aware of an ongoing felony. Citizen’s arrests were popular in the reconstruction era, when many Southern governments encouraged white and black citizens to act as law enforcement to stop groups from committing atrocities. Local organizers, in voicing their disbelief, have said that the proprietor is not only operating without a permit, but has been sued before by workers alleging violation of the federal minimum wage law.

Now if working class and even middle class whites would connect the dots, we would truly be a force to be reckoned with, all of us - at long last. It's several centuries past time for working whites to realize that our common cause is to be found not with white elites by virtue of a shared trait as illusory as "whiteness," but rather with all workers by virtue of our survival depending on our ability to organize in resistance to exploitation by the megagroupthinkcorptocracy.

Viva la revolucion, my white brothers and sisters. Tim Wise wants St. Bernard residents to march over to the Ninth Ward in solidarity, then for all to march together on Baton Rouge and the headquarters of the Corps of Engineers and places beyond:

Today, I was in a small town and got hungry very suddenly (the old hypoglycemia), so I stopped at a Taco Bell. I hadn't eaten there in a long time. When I lived up North, I would eat their tacos once in a blue moon because I liked them at least better than fast food burgers, but the last few years, I made sure to stay away because of the boycott and hunger strike against them. The action was started because the suppliers of Taco Bell's tomatoes were keeping the immigrant farm workers in slavery conditions.

So, woo-hoo, the boycott has been over for more than a year, and today I ate two tacos there. So, um, what's with the bell near the door, with the sign that invites customers to "ring the bell" if they've enjoyed their meals? So, what are we, Pavlov's dogs now? They're training us to train ourselves to associate that ringing bell with cornmeal shells stuffed with mystery meat and cheap tomatoes picked by underpaid migrant laborers? And I couldn't believe it, but several people rang the damn bell on their way out the door. Have we no dignity left whatsoever? We're doing their advertising for them now, in front of the other customers?

Then, an employee went from table to table offering people a coupon for a free combo meal IF they immediately took out their cell phones and called Taco Bell headquarters to answer their customer service survey. People seemed so thrilled to get their combo meal freebie, which has a street value of, I believe, about $4. They took out their phones mid-meal, calling as the employee stood guard and made sure they completed the corporate bidding before she would hand over the golden ticket. It was the middle of the day - don't they pay for their weekday/daytime minutes? I do. Also, no one questioned for a second what they were being asked to do, why, and by whom. I mean, I wanted to know, for example, would those bastards have my cell number for telemarketing purposes after this (in many cases, accepting a free offer of any kind does indeed give telemarketers a legal "in" to annoy you unlimited times in the future - that's why you see those ads for free ringtones; what they want is to get your cell phone number into their telemarketing database). Would they be asking for my name or address?

Why aren't more people skeptical about this stuff? Recently, I went to a website that sells women's clothing, a very reputable company. I wanted to track some items - you know, haul them around in the virtual shopping cart for a bit - and to do that, I had to register. I, however, believe in evading and sabotaging the information gatherers whenever I can. After all, Wendell Berry said so:

Manifesto:The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

To that end, I use made up names. Strangely enough, these alter egos of mine most often can be found at 555 Main Street (and they like the 90210 / Beverly Hills zip code). Every once in a while, I use my real name but with the wrong address, to throw them off in case they get close to pinning down the real me. Oh, and the woman who made my life hell at my previous job - I use her name for CVS cards, for Winn Dixie cards, all kinds of stuff. She's been places she doesn't even know she's been! Still, I figure, while I'm indulging my adolescent grudge I am also doing her a favor by confusing the information keepers about where she really is and what she's really buying - so, you know, it's a win-win.

Anyway, so back to the women's clothing company. On this occassion, I needed to give my real adddress - for some purpose that I can no longer remember - so I decided to name myself "Violet William" (there are Williams on the family tree, and I was kinda in a purple mood). Mind you, there was no reason for them to send me anything. Eight weeks later, I receive three women's clothing catalogues in the mail, all on the same day, all addressed to Violet William. And the first thing I thought was, "Who the hell is Violet William?" And then I realized, "Ooooh, right, one of my information-age alter-egos." And the second thing I thought was, "Those bastards sold my information to some database," and I was quite annoyed. Finally, however, I rememberd that the whole point of the consumer alter-ego is to try to keep the information gatherers off my trail, so, hey, let them try to compile their multi-source consumer profile of Violet William.

So, soon after having eaten at Taco Hell, I had to make a stop at Wal-Mart - NOT because I've lost the stomach for fighting the megagroupthinkcorptocracy but because my body was engaged in its own struggle post Taco Bell (TMI? Sorry, trying to give the context). This Wal-Mart was so rundown. The bathroom was all torn up, the stall doors scratched up and hanging crookedly. On the way past the makeup section, I saw a display for some cologne and on the display it said something like "That's why she's yours. Because you're the king."

We are such a nation of consumers. Consumers rather than citizens. I mean, someone offers a free coupon and people give up their right to privacy, since the data collectors are mining EVERY bit of information they can get on every one of us. You know what my brother-in-law's argument is in favor of the congressional telecom immunity law? "There is no point in lawsuits that award damages, because the corporation will just pass on the cost of the damages to me, their customer." Even if the guy is right and assuming a request for a rate hike from your phone company were immediately approved, it might be, what, thirty cents a month? A dollar? He can afford that; it won't mean his sweet babies will have to go to bed hungry. I was horrified by his point of view on this - his first thought is how will this affect me, the consumer rather than how will this affect me, citizen of the republic. Are your civil rights worth a dollar a month added to your phone bill, to make it clear to the telecomm companies that they are under no circumstances to cooperate with illegal government spying on citizens? This kind of consumer-think would preclude ANY corporate tort judgements, since, according to my brother-in-law, the corporations will just pass on the cost to him, so he doesn't want any judgements against big companies. Let Taco Bell enslave tomato pickers. Let the telecoms sell our private data. Let chemical companies pollute the groundwater. Let Wal-Mart engage in the most wide-spread sex discrimination yet documented. But no damages should be awarded, says the brother-in-law, because we consumers want our cheap shit as cheap as possible. No accountability please.

Meanwhile, back in the car, the only talk shows on the radio at the time were Dennis Miller and Rush Limbaugh. Nothing local. No signs of intelligent life coming through the airwaves. Limbaugh was bragging about the success of "Operation Chaos," which means voting for Hillary just to keep Democrats busy plucking each other's eyes out. Hateful bastards. I would never bother trying to screw up their primary - partly because it's just wrong and partly because I don't want ANY vote for a Republican on my soul when I die. They CAN NOT WIN THE BATTLE OF IDEAS and they know it, so they resort to distractions and dirty tricks.

Also in the car, I heard that a movie crew shut down the bridge so the city could serve as their Hollywood set and, as a result, there would be traffic jams. You know, finish filming, then come in and just tear the place down - it's all cardboard, right? New Orleans is the adult Disneyland, Hollywood South, JazzLand, GumboLand, yes ma'm, souvenire shop is up ahead to the left in what was once known in this neighborhood as Miss Riti's house.

I've been brewing this rant about tourism ever since Katrina and I think the brew will become a blog post very soon. Today I saw a book I REALLY want to get (next payday) called "Authentic New Orleans: Tourism, Culture, and Race in the Big Easy". I'd like to mix that author's academic insights with some of my own experiences and write about it. I'm pretty well fed up with putting the "New Orleans brand" out there for tourists. I mean, is this a city or a zoo? A home or a theme park? Let the tourists puke in their own backyards.

Viva la revolucion.

Sexually Harassed? Well, I Did Stay at a Holiday Inn Express Last Night

So imagine this. You are a woman travelling alone, staying at a hotel. Maybe while you're waiting to check in, a man who is also waiting casually asks you about your trip. If you do what I unthinkingly did recently, maybe you tell a bit about your business and then, as you insert the key into the door of your room, you realize too late that you have a big mouth and that now some dude in the hotel knows that you are here, all alone. Your heart starts to pound. Your breath quickens. You can't get the door open and then shut again quickly enough. You call home to be sure someone knows where to start looking, room number and all, just in case you are never heard from again. You check that weird metal arm thing on the door and wonder exactly what that does to keep an intruder out. You turn over the electronic key pass in your hands and hope it's true that the same pass is only good for a single stay.

So imagine my shock when the other day, I saw this new commercial (click "Bacon") for Holiday Inn Express. Showcasing the hotel chain's breakfast bar by playing it up as an actual bar, the ad involves several men standing in the dining area, ogling a woman alone, and discussing what breakfast item they should "send" her.

As BrandWeek describes it:

New work from Fallon, Minneapolis, cheekily calls attention to new hot entrees by positioning the breakfast bar as a nightclub. In one ad, co-workers mingle near the buffet while one guy tosses pick-up lines at his boss. Another 30-second ad shows men discussing whether it’s good form to send a cheese omelet, bacon or a cinnamon roll to a hottie they spot at in the buffet line. The effort also borrows nightlife elements like ladies night the designated driver and play up the free meal and breakfast to go service. Voice over mentions, “Check out the new hot bar in town.”

So, I went to Holiday Inn's web page and found the other ads, including this one (click "pick up") in which a male business traveller at the breakfast "bar" mindlessly attempts to pick up every woman in the place, including one who has to remind him that she is, in fact, his boss! Oh, ha-ha-ha. Sexual harassment is just so "cheeky," as Brandweek describes the ad campaign.

There is another article about the ad campaign at Hotel Resource:

The Express Start(R) Breakfast Bar relaunch coincides with the brand's newest series of TV commercials that began airing the week of Feb. 11. The new spots play off the idea of Holiday Inn Express offering the 'hot' new bar in town. The breakfast bar takes on a life of its own as the social scene for groups of business travelers who dine, flirt and socialize with colleagues in potentially awkward, yet humorous situations. The ads from Fallon Minneapolis have the unexpected, witty humor that is characteristic of the award winning Holiday Inn Express Stay Smart advertising campaign. The new spots can be viewed at http://www.hiexpress.com/, and will air on popular national cable networks like ESPN, The History Channel, Comedy Central, CNN and TNT. The ads also will air on CBS during the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

During basketball. Really? What, no "Lifetime?" As usual, we know to whom the pitch is really being made. And note the article's references to the ads' "potentially awkward, yet humorous situations," which leaves out the fact that the situations depicted are also potentially dangerous - at least for a woman who eats breakfast in the hotel lobby and then must return alone to her room before making several trips to load luggage into her vehicle.

Did no one at the ad agency or the hotel chain or in the t.v. production process ever think about the fact that being a woman staying in a hotel alone is somewhat frightening? Don't get me wrong - I loved my hotel room a few weeks ago. It was the first time in my entire life that I had ever had my own room and I loved it so much I threatened to never return home. Still, there were those moments, always that awareness inherent to living while female under the patriarchy. There was the guy at the desk to whom I accidentally implied that I was alone. Later, there was a man coming into the hotel some moments after me and I was terrified as I got my luggage to the internal staircase, brick, thick-walled, meant to be used in case of fire but also probably soundproof and a problem if I were attacked and needed to scream. My arms were full and as I waited for the stairwell door to click shut on its own, my heart was pounding even as I strained to listen carefully for footsteps. Then the door didn't quite click all the way, which meant the man in the hallway behind me could possibly follow me into the stair area. Scary stuff. A day in the life.

And Holiday Inn thinks it's oh-so innocent, safe, "cheeky" even to show men gawking at women and practicing their sophomoric sexual pitches right there at the hotel's breakfast bar.

Unbelievable.

Every space and every scenario in this country is seen as a potential venue in which men can objectify women - both in real life and in advertising.

Just to see if I was possibly overreacting (I have been accused from time to time, it's true), I did a quick google search of "hotel room rape." Of course, it's not overreacting when we women know we feel nervous about being assaulted a lot of the time, and that alone makes the Holiday Inn ads inexcusable, but I wanted to know if there is indeed a chance of a woman being raped at a hotel. And here is a sample:

"A Guest at the Plaza Hotel is Raped in Her Suite"

California Lodging Industry Association: "Hotel Not Liable for Guest's Rape, 7th District Rules"

"Safety of Hotel Employees: Rape at W Hotel New York"

"Hotel Guest Reports Rape by Security"

"Businesswoman Raped in Hotel Room, Jury Told" (the Hilton, Sussex, England)

tort case against Omni Hotels over rape of a woman attending a "Women in Steel" union conference in D.C.

more hotel torts, "Travel Abroad, Sue at Home"

It turns out there are even books on "Hotel, Restaurant, and Travel Law: a Preventive Approach."

Here is a summary of hotel and related liability lawsuits ("premises security liability suits"). Who wins these cases?

defendants: 52% of cases
plaintiffs: 21% of cases
remanded: 19% of cases

I will be contacting Holiday Inn Express customer service about these ads.

Because Even Death is Hawt on a Woman

You have got to be kidding me. I really want to throw up. This video - a public service announcement about drunk driving - lures the viewer in by giving the impression it's a woman having sex. It turns out, however, that something very different is going on. Check out the analysis at sparkle*matrix. I too immediately thought of that "America's Next Top Model" photo shoot. See also the section of "Gender Ads" that focuses on depictions of "sexy" dead women.

It's not often that I'm really shocked when it comes to sexism and woman-hating. Disgusted, yeah, every day, but not often shocked. This, however, I find really shocking.