Rhetorical question: How much must it suck arse to be married to either the latest over-paid sportsdude to reveal what a tosser he is, Tiger Woods, or preacher of rape culture, Charlie Sheen?
Quite a lot I would imagine, although maybe not much more than it would suck to be married to any guy.
I don’t have much to say about Woods’ ‘infidelity’ because working yourself into a moral outrage when someone breaks ‘The Rules’ of heteronormativity, is only possible if you were a signitory to those rules in the first place. As I’ve stated before, that whole het deal involving twoo wuv, monogamy and picket fences is a huge sham. Unfortunately when famous people break those rules, it seems to only reinforce the perceived validity of them rather than expose them as the dirty, manipulative propaganda that they really are.
In this post here I mentioned the way in which Sheen’s tv gig, Two And A Half Men and other comedic rape narratives of that ilk, promote misogynist hate speech and the idea that women are not human but rather some kind of sub-species upon which men are biologically hard-wired to prey (what MRA tools refer to as ‘human nature’).
As you may or may not know, Sheen has just been charged with domestic violence, and had to spend the annual godbag celebration of western wealth gained through oppression and slavery, with an excessive display of gluttony and consumerism (also known as xmas), in a holding cell (yeah I allowed myself a bit of a smirk, too).
But if you thought that the people suffering the most from the abusive behaviour of these two ‘legends’ would be their partners then you were wrong. It’s apparently Woods and Sheen we should be feeling sorry for, as indicated by this poll where you can vote, NOT as I first assumed, for which one of them is the biggest asshole, but which of them has had a harder time from the media. It’s enough to make you puke your fruit mince pies, I swear.
The sheer pernicious bastardry of equating infidelity with violence aside, it’s annoying how the role played by the media in promoting negative, oppressive and downright dangerous messages about women seems to be an accepted part of life. But whenever an individual dude gets non-worshipful type media attention for simply adhereing to the principles of misogyny being flogging by that same media, then suddenly the media are the bad guys who should just respect the privacy of over-paid abusive pricks like Woods and Sheen.
The subtle variations on patriarchal double standards are endless, apparently.
I’ve been resisting posting a response to this Toyota Yaris ‘ad’ piece of shit, because so many other bloggers already have it covered, but the sheer vomit-inducing vileness of it keeps haunting me.
I’m genuinely stumped at just how these ‘creatives’ as they like to call themselves could possibly look at this and think that it’s original and edgy – pushing The Boundaries or however they want to delude themselves. This thing pushes boundaries about as much as Fonzie’s sexist diatribe pushed the boundaries of 1950s conservative gender stereotypes, as in, it reinforces them! Someone should tell these guys that simply pushing the boundaries is setting the bar of edginess rather low – it’s smashing right through those boundaries and beyond that’s truly revolutionary.
It’s based on one of Patriarchy’s all-time favourite narratives: “Woman as thing to be traded amongst men” Yeah – that old chestnut! The very theme that has dominated society for, oh a few thousand years now! The giant manchildren who wrote and filmed this actually think that they discovered that theme! And I haven’t typed one of these for years but what the hell – LMFAO! Where I grew up it would have been considered cutting edge to challenge the dominant social paradigms – reinforcing them was the job of our conservative parents.
Now, as has been pointed out by most of the expert drones in social media, it wasn’t a real commercial. It was one of several entries in a contest, which just happened to win probably due to lack of competition and/or lack of recognition of fundamental human rights principles on the part of the judges. The winner got seven grand I believe, and a McDonalds encouragement award to stick up on the fridge.
The reason Toyota freaked out when the shit finally hit the fan, is because one of their representatives was on the judging panel and so therefore they have officially endorsed this graphic representation of women’s subordinate position within the social order.
The guy who wrote it, Micha-conservative parent type- McDonald, is sulking now because having it pointed out to him that his masterpiece is actually a broadcast of malicious hate speech, has hurt his feelings. People are just so PC these days, y’know? They can’t see the brilliance of his work. He did however, offer an eloquent apology – here it is:
Responses to the criticism of this steaming pile of crap have been along the predictable lines of “People have no sense of humour”, yeah because laughing at stuff is like the most important thing in the world, dude! And privileged people’s right to laugh at other people’s oppression is way more important than those other people’s right to not be oppressed! Because in real life, men never conspire to bring about a woman’s rape. That’s just crazy talk!
So there you have it – this incident reinforces theories about male hegemony and the media’s role in it. The white dudebros who work in this field view the world from a fairly high rung of the social ladder – a dizzying height you might say – and this apparently impairs their capacity to generate ideas which do not uphold and promote the social order. From their perspective it really is hilarious to ‘create’ stories which do that. They don’t see these stories as lacking in vision, they see them as pushing The Boundaries and in their little world they probably are.
But what they can’t see, due to their own location within social divisions, is that those boundaries actually extend way beyond the limited framework from which they are operating. They can’t envision a world in which men do not dominate women and so any ‘cutting edge creative’ shit they come up with is always confined to that theme – they’re telling the same old story but just in different ways and so finding the absolute most offensive way to tell that one same story, becomes (in their little bizarro world) a yardstick for creativity.
This destructive pattern of behaviour is sparking fears amongst the feminist community of an epidemic of OCRS, or Obsessive Chestnut Revival Syndrome. These young men are thought to be running out of ideas and are therefore at risk of not having tens of thousands of dollars to piss up against a wall. So please, feminists, act now – put something back into the community by donating your incisive social analyses and knowledge of power structures, so that we can save these unfortunate ad men. If our efforts enable just one of them to remain in the league of the talentless, over-paid domain of advertising, it will be truly worth it.
But for now, let’s think about how that commercial might have been written by someone who is truly visionary – me.
Keeping in mind that the Toyota Yaris is a ‘chick’s car’ and that if you’re going to attempt to help Toyota sell more of them (my understanding of the purpose of a commercial) then you might just want to be writing female characters that are more than one-dimensional bots. This would be very easy if you just keep it in mind that women are not in fact one-dimensional bots, but human beings. Now you have engaged your potential buyer by acknowledging their fully human status, you could write a narrative which reflects that significant factor, as opposed to one which supports men’s obsession with controlling women’s sexuality.
Here are some possible alternative scenarios:
1) A group of young feminist women are out at a gig seeing the all-women feminist band of their choice, enjoying a Tequila or two and discussing career pathways and their financial investments. A couple of young predators of the dudely persuasion start hovering nearby and leering. The young women start rolling their eyes, perhaps it’s time to get outta here and grab a couple of pizzas, go home and watch a few late night re-runs of Buffy. Then they leave a decent tip for the woman working behind the bar and escape in their trusty Toyota Yaris, laughing and mocking the predatory dudes, in sisterly solidarity all the way home!
or…
2) A young lesbian woman whose oppressive dad is in denial about his daughter’s sexuality, is sick to death of dad trying to arrange for her to go out on proper dates with real people (boys). So while dad engages in some sexist/misogynous banter with whatever cocky dudebro he’s lined up for her this time, she ducks out the back door and escapes in a Toyota Yaris driven by her girlfriend.
Either of these scenarios will push boundaries and subvert those awful themes of disempowerment that creative dudes seem to be so dependent on. Making your narrative all about the guys, and attempting to man up what is generally agreed to be a girl car, by re-inventing it as the latest Ford Escort Sin Bin*, is gonna leave a lot of women cold, having the effect of alienating your primary consumer group and pissing off not only your client but a lot of angry feminist bloggers, too.
Not rocket science, guys.
The good ol' Sin Bin, 1970s Aussie Bloke's idea of a honeymoon suite.
Edit: In this piece of insightful analysis Jimmy Maymann waffles in bland, abstract terms about ‘loyal brand supporters’ and how the danger inherent in social media experiments like this one is that the content can end up spreading to ‘other communities’ who may find the ad more offensive than those ‘loyal supporters’.
Some audiences are more receptive to edgy content than others. When running UCG competitions, the chances of generating controversial ideas increases. As I mentioned before, a brand’s loyal supporters may well come up with a great piece of content that appeals to those closest to the brand.
But content can quickly spread to other communities who may interpret you ad differently, find it ad annoying or even offensive. Before starting out you need to be clear about whether this matters to you and how you will manage it.
Hmm…in this case it would appear that those ‘other’ communities actually are the ‘loyal supporters’, Jimmy boy. Feminist bloggers tend to be women after all, and the Yaris is marketed to who?? Yes! Women!
I drive a Toyota and I have a teenage daughter. I am a supporter of the brand, and I’m pissed.
Maymann’s commentary is another indication that men don’t really get what went wrong here.
Still Life With Cat has an excellent post up about the Mad Monk who has his eye on the throne and the potential to seriously fuck with the lives and freedom of women.
This guy has a profound hatred of women and I ask that you not only circulate this article among your radical feminist and other activist networks but that you send it to every woman you know. We need to talk about this guy, about his past, about his ideology and about the depth of his hideousness – we need to consciousness-raise.
Go forth!
Edit:Some of Abbott’s more hideous quotes.
March 2004 – [on abortion] “To a pregnant 14-year-old struggling to grasp what’s happening . . .a senior student with a whole life mapped out or a mother already failing to cope under difficult circumstances, abortion is the easy way out”
Imagine women having an easy way out of anything – the horror!
July 2006 – [on the camel problem in Central Australia] “Why not get [Aborigines] out shooting the camels. It gives them something they would love to do and it beats petrol sniffing”
Even I’m speechless over that one.
I hope that Bob Hawke is right about Abbot’s leadership: “Temporary” lol
Posted December 5, 2009 by Linda Radfem Categories:activism, politics
Cool new book detailing some of Australia’s radical activist history, by Iain McIntyre.
True, I’ve only flipped through it briefly and there appears to be not enough on feminist activism, also I don’t think The Chaser deserve to be included because they’re kind of antithesis to activism, but this is an important book.
The launch party is tonight at The Red Rattler in Marrickville. One of the speakers will be Rachel Evans, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Western Sydney and orchestrator of the no to pope/anti-annoyance laws campaign.
Isn’t it always the way? Kristina Keneally is the first woman premier of NSW. Um, ok.
WHOOPITY DOO!
Now misogynists and other patriarchy-deniers will be able to say “See? We do let teh wimminzez have teh power sometimes!” Right, so long as those wimminz are straight, white, married, christian, right-wing, middle-class, conventionally-attractive mothers of two.
In other words, one of patriarchy’s cheerleaders.
I think it’s unfair to label her a ‘puppet’ because in a patriarchy all women are puppets to some degree or another, but fuck, is anyone else deeply disturbed by this? Tony Abbott has been the federal opposition leader for five minutes and already evil stuff is happening. The right are lording it over State Labor and now when they fail to win the next election they’ll have the convenient excuse that it must have been because people don’t want female leaders.
Now Australian Feminists will be in that no win situation where if we criticise her political ideology we’ll be accused of being Anti-Feminist, but at the same time when we defend her from all the misogynist shit that will no doubt be coming her way soon we’ll still be accused of being Anti-Feminist because it will mean defending a woman whose beliefs are in fact Anti-Feminist. Much the same dilemma that American Feminists have had regarding Sarah Palin. Can’t wait!
Either way, whatever happens, you can be sure it will be all the fault of feminists.
Keneally says she’s a Feminist – (sigh) – she says that as a ‘working mother’ she is familiar with the issues that working mothers face. Huh? Sure she is! If that were true then she wouldn’t have referred to ‘working mothers’ because she would know that ALL women work whether they have kids or not. They just don’t necessarily get paid for it. She might be familiar with the issues of working mums who are Just Like Her, straight, white, married, middle-class, religious, home-owning mums. But I think it’s safe to assume that she absolutely is NOT familiar with my issues as a working mother. Has she experienced being at risk of homelessness for example? Has she had the demeaning experience of dealing with Centrelink? Has she ever worn the Irresponsible Slut or Welfare Queen tag of the single mother? I’m going to recklessly move out on a limb and suggest that she probably has not.
Some people are hoping this will give the Left some incentives to team up with the Greens and hey wouldn’t that be great? But my fear is that it will all end in tears with the Liberals bulldozing their way through next election while the notion of female political leadership becomes roadkill in the collective Australian consciousness.
Edit – It’s starting already. She cries too much so she must be weak of course. How long til she stops crying and they start calling her a heartless bitch I wonder.
Memo: straight people know what’s best for gay people, and it’s not a life free of abuse, violence, harassment and social discrimination or anything.
It’s wedding vows!
Can’t tell you how frustrating it is to constantly have these posses of white het petty bourgeois do-gooders imposing their oppressive values on me.
Marriage is of course highly valued among this group and so they feel safe and comfortable taking up the cause, but please! Do you people not get just how offensive it is? How fucking oppressive?
Creating an illusion of sameness is NOT the same as acceptance of diversity, and I would like you all to really critically examine your own motivation for participating in these campaigns – could it really just be about making yourselves feel good about yourselves? So then you can all pat each other on the back before you return to your safe little heteronormative, economically/socially/politically-privileged havens, secure in the knowledge that what YOU say about lesbians and gay people carries more weight in the public sphere than what we say about ourselves. Are you actually asking lesbians and other gay people what they want? Or what they think? Or are you just assuming that seeing as this is an institution that you hold dear to your own hearts then it must automatically follow that lesbians and gay people would want it too? Or is it just about promoting your own blog and your own financial interests? Be nice if you could resist appropriating my oppression in order to do that. Surely you have other excuses to do your boring middle class socialising in your boring middle class hats? Just sayin’.
This kind of shit is the foundation of oppressive behaviour and there are many of us who really genuinely resent your oppressive behaviour around this issue.
For me personally, it symbolises everything that is wrong with het attitudes, and it quite literally shits me to tears that these people constantly refuse to listen up and blithely continue to go about acting in what they see as being in my best interests. Being able to marry another woman won’t ensure I can walk down the street without hearing the predictable cry of “Fuckin’ dyke!”.
Your behaviour is a hideous abuse of power and het privilege and I seriously urge you all to shove your marriage equality up your heteronormative clackers.
…and it’s not a life free of violence and abuse from men, it’s flawless skin!
I guess it’s never too early to educate girls about how hideous they are and how in order to succeed scrape by in life, they must be skillful in the practice of covering up all those ugly flaws that are characteristic of being biologically female. This process involves disguising grotesque physical abnormalities such as an undefined lip line, non-luscious lashes and of course all those shameful pores.
Some of you might recall the 2008 report by Dr Michael Flood et al. which turned up the shocking news that girls are vulnerable to sexual assault and boys think that’s pretty cool. You might also recall that COAG have committed to halving homelessness by the year 2020 and that one of the issues to be addressed to reduce homelessness is domestic violence.
Therefore it would seem to me just off the top of my head that the best response to this from the state gov might have been to continue funding for programs that empower young girls to not sign up for a life-time of men’s shit, yeah?
No, think again. The state gov decided to simultaneously can all that malarkey whilst giving the green light to this dog’s dinner!
Yep. That’s right. Girls don’t need a heads up on how NOT to fall into the trap of abusive relationships- they just need disempowerment programs to keep them insecure about their human worth!
One of the NAHA strategies to reduce homelessness is create more safe, stable, long-term housing options for women escaping men who have been violent and abusive toward them and their children. These violent relationships often begin with low-grade abuse and controlling behaviour – first he starts to find fault with all your friends, he might start complaining about spending time with them or pick arguments with them, alienating them. Then he starts finding fault with you, he might blow up at you a couple of times over something trivial. He doesn’t like you talking to some people, he thought he saw you looking at some guy the wrong way. Then he’s texting you twenty times a day to see where you are, what you’re doing etc. Then to make matters worse, popular culture sends you a bunch of messages saying that male attention is essential to your wellbeing and that this kind of behaviour is really hot and romantic – he must really love you!
Combine this shit with the macro forces of structural and institutional disadvantage experienced by women in a patriarchy, which ensure women are socially, politically and economically subordinate to men, and your path to a violent relationship from which an escape will be difficult, is well and truly mapped out for you.
And governments know this! They’ve said they know this! Because combating domestic violence is high up on their list of plans to reduce homelessness.
Therefore it would make sense to continue funding for programs to raise the consciousness of 14 and 15 year old girls so that when this guy comes along, they have his number. They’re a wake up to his shit. This will automatically reduce domestic violence and the chronic need for safe housing for women escaping it.
But no – the state gov seems to think a better option than preventing you from experiencing domestic violence in the first place would be to have housing ready for you so that in ten or fifteen years when you’re running from violence and hiding out in a women’s refuge with your kids, some human service worker will know exactly how to find you an affordable new home AND you’ll have the invaluable skill of being able camouflage the bruises on your face thanks to all those expert make-up classes you did back in highschool.
Just a few thoughts about drugs and the various contradicting social constructions of substance use by thems whats got The Power.
Basically, there are a shitload of people incarcerated in our gaols simply because the state has decided that use of certain substances is very naughty and punishable. Illicit drug use is constructed as being harmful not only to individuals but to the broader community and society generally. Non state-approved substances are strongly associated with crime and criminality.
My issue here is that at the same time, there is also a fucktonne of other substances which the state will happily turn a blind eye to, sanction, or even promote. The Nimbinian in me finds it hard to accept a society which views weed as bad, but McDonalds as fine and dandy thankyou.
I also have to raise an eyebrow at the practice of locking people up for the enjoyment of certain opiates while at the same time prescribing for them grand under-researched cocktails of methadone, benzodiazepines, buprenorphine, SSRIs and valium.
I don’t buy the idea that the state cares deeply about the harm we can do to ourselves through using naughty substances. The state is all about social control and stage-managing the social order. So it isn’t a case of a particular substance being harmful in itself, it’s a case of which substances the state deems as being harmful to the social order. Them in power decide what’s good what’s bad and what we should be locked up for. If your social circumstances are so crappy that you feel the need to seek oblivion on a regular basis, that’s ok, just so long as you do it with the substances that the state wants you to do it with, which usually seem to be the ones that dull the mind rather than expand it AND those which the state can profit from.
I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my childhood heros.
“You can stick your moral standards cos it’s all a dirty lie”
Bon Scott (RIP)
And this one from Manson who may not be perfect but anyone who publicly destroys a bible has my respect.
“I’m not a slave to a world that doesn’t give a shit”
[ ]...groups of women who feel excluded from feminist discourse and praxis can make a place for themselves only if they first create, via critiques, an awareness of the factors that alienate them. ~
bell hooks
Who said what...