This year's Superbowl Ads were pretty 'meh' and most of them were also (unsurprisingly) pretty sexist--but too boring to even get me remotely riled up , and that's saying something. Thankfully, the Focus on the Family ad that caused all the controversy was so short and understated that I barely noticed it before it was over. Of course, considering how many ads CBS aired for its own shows(!) there would certainly have been room for that gay dating site ad they refused to air. All that said, I was unimpressed and unmoved, for the most part.
There was, however, one ad that I absolutely hated:
Man's. Last. Stand. Indeed.
In other words: ARE WE BEING CLEAR ENOUGH FOR YOU WITH OUR BOLD, ALL CAPS FONT THAT THIS CAR WILL REINFORCE YOUR VIRILE MASCULINITY DESPITE THE FACT THAT YOU'RE COMPLETELY DOMINATED BY YOUR OVERBEARING WIFE WHO ASKS TOTALLY UNREASONABLE THINGS OF YOU LIKE SHARING IN THE HOUSEWORK AND CLEANING UP AFTER YOURSELF?
(This lovely message is further supplemented by Dodge's description for its posting of the ad on Youtube: "You've sacrificed a lot, but surely there is a limit to your chivalry. Drive the car you want to drive.")
Besides a lot of duds, there were a few (very few) good ads, some okay ads, and one great ad: Google's funny, thoughtful and understated vehicle for search engine wish fulfillment.
I have to say, though, for once the game was way more interesting than the advertisements.
What were your favorite and least favorite ads this year?
Monday, February 8, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Feminist Readings: Aristocratic Women in Medieval France
(Yes, it's a book reviewish column - see the end for rambling about what I think I'm doing.)
Aristocratic Women in Medieval France (1999), edited by Theodore Everglades is a collection of five pieces on, well, exactly those women mentioned in the title. The first concerns one particularly powerful individual, the remainder examines all the women of whom records remain in particular regions of France. It's quite narrow in scope, the intended purpose being to expand scholarship on women living in the 11th through 13th centuries.
In this it succeeds, but the real value of the book to the casual reader is that it provides real, non-trivial examples of important women in the Medieval Era. Let me explain:
From the book:
The influence of feminism on historical thought and history education over the last half-century is fairly obvious. There's been a real attempt to add women to textbooks and discussions, to consider women as historically important figures. There's been criticism of this - not just by those whose patriarchal ideals are being threatened, but by otherwise well-meaning feminists. They claim that women have been oppressed to the extent that they really haven't accomplished much of worth before, say, the 19th century or so, and that we shouldn't try and pretend otherwise.
There's something too this - who hasn't read a sidebar about some minor female figure in an otherwise male-oriented work and wondered why they bothered including it (other than being 'politically correct') It's saddening, really, that they can't find anything better.
And that's where works like Aristocratic Women in Medieval France come in. The work presents, in meticulous detail, the recorded activities of a number of powerful women whose actions had a real effect on lives and events. They disperse money, give legal judgment in disputes, and sign official documents. They act in place of their absent or deceased husbands, maintain a position of power over male relatives, and even hold property in cases where it was previously thought to be an exclusively male privilege. In short, these women were important entirely in their own right.
Now, this book make no connection to larger scale, more general history, but I have no doubt that such a connection could and will be made. But for the purposes of this book there can be no doubt that women played an important role in this period of time.
There are a couple of things to note: first, the book is only about wealthy women from powerful families - it would be even more interesting to look at the average women (perhaps in relation to aristocratic women). Not the focus of the book, but something to think about. Second, the book itself states that this was a sort of high point for women - after the 13th century, power began to be gathered more an more into the hands of a few patriarchs, who kept their 'lines' intact by way of sole male heirs - effectively shutting women off from sources of societal power.
It's easy to be erased. Adela of Blois (for instance) was one of the most well-known figures of her era and locale, but by the standards of patriarchal history, she is unknown and worthless.
And that's what we should learn here. Insisting that women are equally important has to be an ongoing work - and restoring women to their proper place in history (and they do have an important place, not just as side notes) is a vital part of this process.
--
(What's all this? Basically, I spend an inordinately large amount of time reading various feminist/womanist/related books, and I've always been disappointed that out of so much interesting feminist thought and research, so little is actually discussed or even heard of. So, each week I'll take a book at random and summarize it, hopefully both disseminating new ideas and keeping old ones alive. For the academics reading this - I'm not in Women's Studies, I'm just an academic (science, in particular) type with too much time on her hands, so if I get something technical wrong don't roast me, okay?)
Aristocratic Women in Medieval France (1999), edited by Theodore Everglades is a collection of five pieces on, well, exactly those women mentioned in the title. The first concerns one particularly powerful individual, the remainder examines all the women of whom records remain in particular regions of France. It's quite narrow in scope, the intended purpose being to expand scholarship on women living in the 11th through 13th centuries.
In this it succeeds, but the real value of the book to the casual reader is that it provides real, non-trivial examples of important women in the Medieval Era. Let me explain:
'Women in History' v. Historical Women
From the book:
At this level of analysis, the sources often reveal that women who embodied the joining of two families through marriage and child bearing were not merely passive pawns in power relations among groups of men; rather, they were active participant whose actions could affect ... the course of politically significant events.
The influence of feminism on historical thought and history education over the last half-century is fairly obvious. There's been a real attempt to add women to textbooks and discussions, to consider women as historically important figures. There's been criticism of this - not just by those whose patriarchal ideals are being threatened, but by otherwise well-meaning feminists. They claim that women have been oppressed to the extent that they really haven't accomplished much of worth before, say, the 19th century or so, and that we shouldn't try and pretend otherwise.
There's something too this - who hasn't read a sidebar about some minor female figure in an otherwise male-oriented work and wondered why they bothered including it (other than being 'politically correct') It's saddening, really, that they can't find anything better.
And that's where works like Aristocratic Women in Medieval France come in. The work presents, in meticulous detail, the recorded activities of a number of powerful women whose actions had a real effect on lives and events. They disperse money, give legal judgment in disputes, and sign official documents. They act in place of their absent or deceased husbands, maintain a position of power over male relatives, and even hold property in cases where it was previously thought to be an exclusively male privilege. In short, these women were important entirely in their own right.
Now, this book make no connection to larger scale, more general history, but I have no doubt that such a connection could and will be made. But for the purposes of this book there can be no doubt that women played an important role in this period of time.
On the other hand...
There are a couple of things to note: first, the book is only about wealthy women from powerful families - it would be even more interesting to look at the average women (perhaps in relation to aristocratic women). Not the focus of the book, but something to think about. Second, the book itself states that this was a sort of high point for women - after the 13th century, power began to be gathered more an more into the hands of a few patriarchs, who kept their 'lines' intact by way of sole male heirs - effectively shutting women off from sources of societal power.
In the end...
It's easy to be erased. Adela of Blois (for instance) was one of the most well-known figures of her era and locale, but by the standards of patriarchal history, she is unknown and worthless.
And that's what we should learn here. Insisting that women are equally important has to be an ongoing work - and restoring women to their proper place in history (and they do have an important place, not just as side notes) is a vital part of this process.
--
(What's all this? Basically, I spend an inordinately large amount of time reading various feminist/womanist/related books, and I've always been disappointed that out of so much interesting feminist thought and research, so little is actually discussed or even heard of. So, each week I'll take a book at random and summarize it, hopefully both disseminating new ideas and keeping old ones alive. For the academics reading this - I'm not in Women's Studies, I'm just an academic (science, in particular) type with too much time on her hands, so if I get something technical wrong don't roast me, okay?)
Read Full Post/Permalink...
Monday, February 1, 2010
Of Super Bowl Ads and Women
Ever since Focus on the Family announced their pro-life Super Bowl ad, there's been arguments and discussions all over. Should it be allowed by the network? Are feminists taking the wrong approach to criticizing it? (thanks, Sarah Palin!) And so on. One of the more interesting pieces was in the Washington Post - it basically suggests that feminists be, well, warmer and fuzzier and more appealing.
Echildne wrote a good (if very angry) bit about treating the pro-choice movement as if it was some sort of for-profit corporation, and loosing sight of well, a woman's right to choose.
I'm going to suggest a slightly different take; the problem is all in the framing.
Isn't it ironic that this is all about a Super Bowl ad? Think about it: the Super Bowl is, well, football. The game that consists of large, muscular men crashing into each other. The Super Bowl is perhaps the archetypal symbol of hyper-masculinity. And that's the context in which we're discussing women's rights.
This is a problem.
Now, I don't have and thing against men - or women - playing football. At the end of the day it's just another sport. But the sport has a long history of sheer hatred toward women, from the beer ads all the way down to the attitudes of the players and coaches (remember all those instances of college coaches hiring strippers with public money). That the Super Bowl is far and away the most watched sporting event - no, televised event period - in the United States says something very significant about our culture (for the record - the most watched event worldwide is the World Cup - that's no better. But I digress).
And here we are, arguing about an anti-abortion commercial which will be played during an overwhelmingly masculine, patriarchal event. So I'd like to suggest this: The commercial doesn't matter. While Kissling and Michelman suggestion for a counter-commercial is certainly apt, and would no doubt have a positive effect - so long as women's issues have to hitch a ride on bigger, more expensive, and more (in the public's mind) important, essentially masculine events, there something very, very wrong with the picture.
That's what we need to fix. As long as we look at this as some sort of big commercialized game (Oh dear - support for abortion rights is down slightly, but hey! Support for gay marriage is up! High fives all around!) we're simply doing it wrong. We need to be about cultural change and ideology, not politics, ads, and entertainment money.
(Crossposted @ Constant Thoughts)
Echildne wrote a good (if very angry) bit about treating the pro-choice movement as if it was some sort of for-profit corporation, and loosing sight of well, a woman's right to choose.
I'm going to suggest a slightly different take; the problem is all in the framing.
Isn't it ironic that this is all about a Super Bowl ad? Think about it: the Super Bowl is, well, football. The game that consists of large, muscular men crashing into each other. The Super Bowl is perhaps the archetypal symbol of hyper-masculinity. And that's the context in which we're discussing women's rights.
This is a problem.
Now, I don't have and thing against men - or women - playing football. At the end of the day it's just another sport. But the sport has a long history of sheer hatred toward women, from the beer ads all the way down to the attitudes of the players and coaches (remember all those instances of college coaches hiring strippers with public money). That the Super Bowl is far and away the most watched sporting event - no, televised event period - in the United States says something very significant about our culture (for the record - the most watched event worldwide is the World Cup - that's no better. But I digress).
And here we are, arguing about an anti-abortion commercial which will be played during an overwhelmingly masculine, patriarchal event. So I'd like to suggest this: The commercial doesn't matter. While Kissling and Michelman suggestion for a counter-commercial is certainly apt, and would no doubt have a positive effect - so long as women's issues have to hitch a ride on bigger, more expensive, and more (in the public's mind) important, essentially masculine events, there something very, very wrong with the picture.
That's what we need to fix. As long as we look at this as some sort of big commercialized game (Oh dear - support for abortion rights is down slightly, but hey! Support for gay marriage is up! High fives all around!) we're simply doing it wrong. We need to be about cultural change and ideology, not politics, ads, and entertainment money.
(Crossposted @ Constant Thoughts)
Read Full Post/Permalink...
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Feminism and the culture of marriage
It seems women who are more successful relative to their husbands have happier marriages.
This is according to some new research - the New York Times article is also interesting - which I've been periodically thinking about ever since feministe linked to it a few days ago. My first thought was, naturally, "well, of course that's true. Successful women are more likely to be happy."
Now, this in itself is very important. An enormous number of people are quite terrified at the prospect of women being the primary earners in a household - they insist that chaos and broken families are the inevitable result. These results make them look positively foolish.
It's even more important than that, though. For years, we've been insisting that society would be a better place with more equality and power for women. But not everyone agrees with that. I can't count the number of times that I've tried to explain why feminism is still important (Women can vote and own property now, can't they? What else do we need?) to someone, only to be told in no uncertain terms that it only benefited women, that families (i.e. men) were being made miserable by feminist actions. One answer to this, of course, is that it's hardly fair for men to achieve their happiness at the expense of women, but research like this essentially bypasses the question.
If successful women actually improve families and marriages, that strikes at the central argument of those who insist the opposite. The so-called 'decline of the family' is one of the most pervasive bogey-persons today; it seems to be being systematically dismantled (other recent research about the effectiveness of homosexual parents comes to mind). Feminism is finally changing, not just laws and regulations, but the culture itself. This is a very, very good thing.
Which is not to say we're anywhere near finished - just look at the tagline of the LA Times take on a study about the increase in women who earn more than their husbands (22% to be specific). 'Researchers say marriage may be a path to economic stability for men.' It's still all about teh mens for so many (and the article was apparently written by a woman!).
We just need to go further. Real cultural change is the answer.
This is according to some new research - the New York Times article is also interesting - which I've been periodically thinking about ever since feministe linked to it a few days ago. My first thought was, naturally, "well, of course that's true. Successful women are more likely to be happy."
Now, this in itself is very important. An enormous number of people are quite terrified at the prospect of women being the primary earners in a household - they insist that chaos and broken families are the inevitable result. These results make them look positively foolish.
It's even more important than that, though. For years, we've been insisting that society would be a better place with more equality and power for women. But not everyone agrees with that. I can't count the number of times that I've tried to explain why feminism is still important (Women can vote and own property now, can't they? What else do we need?) to someone, only to be told in no uncertain terms that it only benefited women, that families (i.e. men) were being made miserable by feminist actions. One answer to this, of course, is that it's hardly fair for men to achieve their happiness at the expense of women, but research like this essentially bypasses the question.
If successful women actually improve families and marriages, that strikes at the central argument of those who insist the opposite. The so-called 'decline of the family' is one of the most pervasive bogey-persons today; it seems to be being systematically dismantled (other recent research about the effectiveness of homosexual parents comes to mind). Feminism is finally changing, not just laws and regulations, but the culture itself. This is a very, very good thing.
Which is not to say we're anywhere near finished - just look at the tagline of the LA Times take on a study about the increase in women who earn more than their husbands (22% to be specific). 'Researchers say marriage may be a path to economic stability for men.' It's still all about teh mens for so many (and the article was apparently written by a woman!).
We just need to go further. Real cultural change is the answer.
Read Full Post/Permalink...
Friday, January 29, 2010
iPad...now with wings
Hire a woman or two for your marketing team, Apple; they might have been able to foresee this problem:
Via the NY Times.
Apple has generated a lot of chatter with its new iPad tablet. But it may not be quite the conversation it wanted.Indeed. No way anyone would have guessed this might happen.
Many women are saying the name evokes awkward associations with feminine hygiene products. People from Boston to Ireland are complaining that “iPad,” in their regional brogue, sounds almost indistinguishable from “iPod,” Apple’s music player.
[...]
In the hours after the iPad announcement on Wednesday, “iTampon” became one of the most popular trending topics on Twitter.
Via the NY Times.
Read Full Post/Permalink...
Thursday, January 28, 2010
You're never getting that station wagon back, Obama
This isn't strictly feminist, but it's political and too damn true not to share (specifically starting around the 1 minute mark). The idea that Obama needs to drift further to the center/right is just asinine.
"Dude, where's your car?"
"I gave the Republicans the keys."
"Why?!"
"They said they'd be nice to me if I did."
"You're never getting that station wagon back, man."
"So giving them my house keys was a bad idea, too?"
"Dude."
Yeah. Something like that.
"Dude, where's your car?"
"I gave the Republicans the keys."
"Why?!"
"They said they'd be nice to me if I did."
"You're never getting that station wagon back, man."
"So giving them my house keys was a bad idea, too?"
"Dude."
Yeah. Something like that.
Read Full Post/Permalink...
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
A few thoughts on Haiti
The disaster in Haiti (as seen by those in the rest of the world, of course) is winding down. The government is giving up on searching and moving toward rebuilding. The media frenzy is nearly over - no headlines, few articles on the front pages of websites and papers. Even more - people aren't talking much about Haiti any more, and although I don't know, I imagine donations are on their way down, too.
I could say that in reality, the disaster is far from over, that we still need to support Haitians, etc. And it would be true - at least to a point.
But in all honesty, Haiti will be okay - as much as it can be. The damage is already done. Hundreds of thousands are dead, and the country destroyed. The humanitarian groups are finally in place, and all the rich foreign governments are involved. The disaster relief machinery is in place, it's all downhill (or is that uphill?) from here.
And it's too late to really do anything, because this disaster wasn't really caused by the earthquake.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It had a terrible infrastructure. The government was inefficient, corrupt, had no resources, and was completely incapable of dealing with a disaster. And on and on it goes.
Haiti needed 'disaster relief' long before the earthquake. And if something had been done, the effect of the quake would have been much, much reduced.
That's how it always happens, though. A part of the world, a people group, some other division has a problem. It could be poverty, potential war or genocide, or just simple racism, sexism, classism. Something happens, the conditions finally become intolerable, and then people (hopefully) do something. If it's obvious enough (earthquake, hurricane), we do quite a lot. If it's more subtle, we don't do as much.
Regardless, by that point all that can be done is clean up. That's the real disaster.
Something needs to be done before the earthquakes, not after.
I could say that in reality, the disaster is far from over, that we still need to support Haitians, etc. And it would be true - at least to a point.
But in all honesty, Haiti will be okay - as much as it can be. The damage is already done. Hundreds of thousands are dead, and the country destroyed. The humanitarian groups are finally in place, and all the rich foreign governments are involved. The disaster relief machinery is in place, it's all downhill (or is that uphill?) from here.
And it's too late to really do anything, because this disaster wasn't really caused by the earthquake.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It had a terrible infrastructure. The government was inefficient, corrupt, had no resources, and was completely incapable of dealing with a disaster. And on and on it goes.
Haiti needed 'disaster relief' long before the earthquake. And if something had been done, the effect of the quake would have been much, much reduced.
That's how it always happens, though. A part of the world, a people group, some other division has a problem. It could be poverty, potential war or genocide, or just simple racism, sexism, classism. Something happens, the conditions finally become intolerable, and then people (hopefully) do something. If it's obvious enough (earthquake, hurricane), we do quite a lot. If it's more subtle, we don't do as much.
Regardless, by that point all that can be done is clean up. That's the real disaster.
Something needs to be done before the earthquakes, not after.
Read Full Post/Permalink...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
