feminine-genius

"Living dolls"

Model Sara Ziff used five years of her very successful modeling career to make a sort of film diary of her time on and off camera which she and her ex-boyfriend have since edited into a movie, Picture Me. It sounds very intriguing in some ways, and downright maddening in others.

The industry has always had a predatory side. Anyone approached in the street by a middle-aged man and asked if they'd like to be a model would think twice about giving him their details (which is the reason model scouts are generally women). There is something inherently intimate about the whole business of fashion photography - the all-seeing lens, the exposed subject, the powerful photographer. What's shocking, listening to Ziff, is how prevalent, and how far up the fashion food chain, sexual exploitation goes. "Vulnerable girls are being put into a potentially predatory environment," says Ziff. "What's in the agency's interest is not always best for the girl, and if she's in a compromising situation, she doesn't necessarily have anyone to turn to."

She remarks that there has always been a sexual backdrop to modeling, which is true. Models pout and tease and exhibit "come hither" looks to sell virtually everything, so there shouldn't be any shocks there. What is perplexing is "the look" that is in at present.

The industry has become increasingly sexualised, and the lines between what is acceptable and what isn't have become more blurred. Naked models inside the pages of a magazine or on a billboard are ubiquitous. Add to this the fact that in their bid to find models that have the "ideal" model shape - flat chests, boyish hips - some agencies are hiring younger and younger girls. Ziff recalls one model sitting backstage at the shows playing with a colouring book. "It is an inherently unbalanced and hierarchical relationship when you pair a 15-year-old girl with a 45-year-old man who is trying to create a sexualised image. You are asking for trouble."

Um, who is interested in this "ideal" model? Not most men, but homosexuals. It's no secret that the industry is heavily populated with men who would be far more attracted to adolescent boys than busty women, and they are doing much of the hiring and layouts. And they seem to have a thing for molesting these emaciated wisps -- not for gratification, but for kicks.

A 16-year-old model is on a photo shoot in Paris. She has very little experience of modelling and is unaccompanied by her agency or parents. She leaves the studio to go to the bathroom and meets the photographer - "a very, very famous photographer, probably one of the world's top names", according to Ziff - in the hallway. He starts fiddling with her clothes. "But you're used to this," says Ziff. "People touch you all the time. Your collar, or your breasts. It's not strange to be handled like that." Then suddenly he puts his hands between her legs and sexually assaults her. "She has no experience of boys, she hasn't even been kissed," says Ziff. "She was so shocked she just stood there and didn't say anything. He just looked at her and walked away and they did the rest of the shoot. And she never told anyone."

Wrong and bad -- and worthy of being exposed (although that story didn't make the final cut because the girl was afraid of the consequences). Info at MySpace.

Select apology

Being no great football fan, I didn't mind being without a telly last night. Evidently, though, the Super Bowl had its share of raunch -- intended and unintended. Folks in Tucson, Arizona using a local Comcast station were subject to ten seconds of lurid feed from a pornographer who managed to sneak into the system.

The station said it had no explanation for what happened but was investigating the incident during the match between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

"When the NBC feed of the Super Bowl was transmitted from KVOA to local cable providers and through over-the-air antennas, there was no pornographic material," KVOA president and General Manager Gary Nielsen said in a statement.

The KVOA statement said the station was dismayed and disappointed that some Comcast customers and their families were subjected to the material.

At that point, all that's left is an apology since one cannot roll back the hands of time. But what about the rest of the viewers nationwide and around the world? Will they get an apology? Anthony Esolen describes the raunch included in the commercials:

In one, a young stubble-chinned guy munches on a chip, and presto! a slinky young lady walking down the street is stripped to her black underwear. Then, presto! bills start shooting out of an ATM machine, and everybody in the street swarms around for the money, in a regular riot. A policeman steps in, but munch! his uniform falls empty to the street, and a little monkey emerges from it.  So, lust -- with the added zest of violent voyeurism  --, avarice, and dehumanization, to sell chips.

In another, a plain-looking female office worker is subjected to public humiliation.  "No one wants to see you naked," says her enemy, another female worker.  The last shot is of a badly shaved doofus (all men are badly shaved doofuses), standing over her, saying, "I want to see you naked."

Unfortunately, he has many more examples of mindless depravity -- for which no one receives an apology. You can't get those minutes back, folks. So much goodness on the field. Off the field? Not so much. I'll stick with Netflix and books on tape.

Why an insult?

Sister Edith who keeps a lovely blog has recently commented on a T-shirt promoting an annual event:

It's Mayfest at our college. (Yes, we have May in April, even though this is northern Minnesota. By the time we actually reach May, it's Finals Week.) One part of Mayfest is the Reif Run, a 5k event for students, faculty, and staff. There are winners - but the ethos is simply to enjoy running through the college's neighborhood on a beautiful spring day. This year was the 30th Reif Run, a landmark.

Although I didn't see the run (my class is scheduled right through it), I did see the t-shirt, and it brought me to a standstill. No, it wasn't the neon-green color. It was the plump little nuns in full habits jogging along a little path.

There is not a single sister in this monastery who wears such garb, and only a very few who wear modified habits. On a campus where most students have at least one sister for a teacher at some point in time - and they see us all over the campus - they nonetheless trot out a worn and offensive stereotype. It never occurs to them that mocking nuns in traditional garb is, in essence, mocking the charism of the sisters who sponsor their college.

Someone will surely think I'm simply humorless and don't get the joke. Perhaps. But imagine the reaction if the t-shirts portrayed, oh, women in the hajib or burka running along a path and crossing the finish line? Hmong people pulling rickshaws along a race course? Scrawny pale thin young men with curly sidelocks and yarmulkes? Mocking drawings of people with disabilites? Native Americans with feathers in their hair? There would be an uproar - and everyone knows it. That's why we don't see t-shirts like that.

A past press release gives the flavour of the event, which sound more like frolicking than competition, which is an appropriate way to wind down after a rigorous school year:

St. Scholastica students often add to the festivity of the event by wearing body paint, unique “hats” or odd costumes, walking the course facing backward, pulling each other in wagons, etc. Participants in the 2005 race are encouraged to dress in prom attire.

I am completely perplexed about why dear sister is offended by the image and calls it mockery. She admits that the depictions are "cute" (I googled, but couldn't find the image) but finds it offensive and stereotypical. Being far-removed from the whole event, I must say that my impression was that the drawing was meant as an honour -- seeing the nuns as good-humoured, very much a part of the spirit of the school (still) and a nostalgic nod to their past visibility which spoke as a universal icon.

Sister may know more about the hearts of the organisers, but I would submit that even in this "sophisticated" age, the generosity of a live given to God cries out for its own display, and what better than the motherly nun, in cheerful habit, joining in the festivities with her charges. Catholicism has always known how to balance feasting with fasting, in a way that all could emulate, and these students wanted that icon to be a stamp of deeper meaning. (Perhaps they miss its real presence.)

Mandated vaccine

Parsing all the angles of the HPV vaccine is difficult, and yet succumbing to its mandated use by a government agency masks the deeper problem which leaves children prone to the harms of promiscuity. Fran Eaton has done the heavy lifting and gives air to an excellent dicussion here.

What most didn't understand is that this HPV vaccine mandate is part of a bigger problem -- a much bigger problem.  A similar thing happened when Illinois decided to mandate chicken pox and Hepatitis B vaccines.  Merck lobbied hard and proved to be very persuasive in the final decisions.

The American public cannot and should not be forced to help any drug company realize a good return on their R & D.  It is their job to sell their products, not to force it on trusting souls who have been persuaded by a cooperative media that a health crisis must be diverted.

If this pattern is not stopped with this vaccine, it won't ever happen.  The slope will have become too steep and slippery.  There will be no place to stop, and we will have no choice but to force medication on our children and ourselves at the whim of any and all drug companies.

There is no doubt that the escalation of this cancer-causing virus has to be stopped. But it has to be stopped by education, persuasion, and connecting the dots between behaviour and consequences.

Barbie reigns again

For better or worse, after a slump lasting for years, Barbie is queen of dolls again.

As dolls go, Barbie has had her ups and downs. She's achieved iconic status, amid multiple alterations to her figure, face and wardrobe. She's survived a very public breakup with Ken and withstood fierce competition from other dolls who've snagged some of her market share.

Sales also have slumped in recent years, as they did at the beginning of the women's movement in early 1970s — when "girls weren't supposed to just go to the prom and marry Ken," says Chris Byrne, an independent toy consultant.

Yet somehow, as she always does, Barbie has managed to bounce back — and not just because she's made of rubbery plastic.

Partly nostalgia on the part of mothers and partly by adding a little bit of "nastiness," which apparently is an essential marketing ingredient for selling things to girls, numbers are good for this toy, whatever that might mean for the state of our girls. It's interesting that one element is an appeal to softness, which the feminists must hate as much as domesticity.

More recently, Mattel has tapped into younger girls' fascination with fairies and princesses, with lines known as "Fairytopia" and "12 Dancing Princesses," which include movies, a stage show and prominent play on Barbie's interactive Web site. Another new Barbie — the "Chat Diva" — carries a toy cell phone and can lip sync and bop her head to music when an iPod is plugged in. And to keep older girls interested, Mattel has developed product lines with cosmetic, perfume and clothing makers.

It would seem that even soccer playing Barbie and presidential candidate Barbie didn't work, whereas princesses and girlfriends provide that elusive marketing success. One cannot rewire girls, even over the course of 40 hard-driven years of trying. Girls want community, peer support, and fantasy that all will end well. Too bad it has to be wrapped in spike heels and a ridiculous bosom, but at least androgyny has crashed and burned with the 10-15 year old crowd. Now if we could only sell virtue in stylised "rubbery plastic," we'd all be saints.

Caveat emptor

Shoppers are hitting the malls in droves, seeking the perfect gift. Kids are dropped off to find items -- kids who might not be there otherwise. More people shop at Christmas than at any other time, so it's the time to make your voices heard about the objectification of women that, this year, seems to have gone beyond the beyonds.

Victoria's Secret mannequins dressed in G-strings, bras, nylons and high heeled-shoes pushed the indecency envelope too far for some Livingston County residents, and they're fighting back with a letter writing campaign.

Hamburg Township resident Robin Blaszak, who is part of a grass-roots group writing letters to protest the store's window display, said she was offended by the scantily-clad mannequins when she recently went shopping at the mall.

Blaszak said this is a "family-friendly community."

"We don't want those things exposed to our children," she said.

Another resident said that this year's display was offensive.

Hamburg Township resident Patrick Flynn said he and other residents have a right not to have those images "in your face."

Flynn, who is married and has seven children, said he wouldn't feel comfortable walking by the display with his children. He said he talks with his children about healthy attitudes and sexuality, but it's more challenging if they see the displays at Victoria's Secret.

"Women who are displayed in this way, I just don't believe it's a healthy thing to put before the public," he said.

And yet what is degrading in the eyes of some is honourable, in the opinion of others.

Blaszak and other members of the letter-writing group would like the lingerie store, located in the new Green Oak Village Place mall, to tone down the display, which can be seen by pedestrians walking by. Blaszak, who is married and has a grown daughter, also took exception to a large photograph showing a "very well-endowed" woman dressed in bra and underwear.

When she first came across the window display, Blaszak became so upset that she went inside the store and talked with an assistant manager who, she said, expressed the view that the store glorifies women.

Right. (cha-ching) Glory. (cha-ching) Glorious to men, profitable to the company (cha-ching), and every woman is reduced to cleavage and curves. I can do without that sort of glorification, thanks.

This letter campaign was a parish-wide initiative that has already caused the display to be taken down. Keep that in mind when you drop off your kids, and don't take the offenses without a fight. (And take note of who owns what):

Limited Brands owns Victoria's Secret as well as Express, Bath & Body Works, C.O. Bigelow, The Limited, The White Barn Candle Co. and Henri Bendel.

Who can speak to the question?

In a pluralistic society, there is the insidious charge that only a particular segment of the population can speak to certain questions, the segment most affected. Thus, feminists say that no men can speak about abortion since they cannot get pregnant, whites cannot speak on discrimination because they have never lived as minorities, etc. This is the charge being leveled in Britain concerning Jack Straw's reservation about the veil that Muslim women wear. He finds it divisive, uncomfortable, and unacceptable. Muslims screamed "intolerant" an "Islamophope" in response.

So now we have the response of a Muslim woman, whose family emigrated to England from Kashmir:

My mother has worked all her life and adapted her ways and dress at work. For ten years she operated heavy machinery and could not wear her chador because of the risk of it becoming caught in the machinery. Without making any fuss she removed her scarf at work and put it back on when she clocked out. My mother is still very much a traditional Muslim woman, but having lived in this country for 40 years she has learnt to embrace British culture — for example, she jogs in a tracksuit and swims in a normal swimming costume to help to alleviate her arthritis.

The writer herself wore a school uniform in British schools so that she could participate fully and take advantage of all opportunities in clubs and sports.

Some Muslims would criticise the way my mother and I dress. They believe that there is only one way to practise Islam and express your beliefs, forgetting that the Muslim faith is interpreted in different ways in different places and that there are distinct cultures and styles of dress in Muslim countries stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. But it is not a requirement of the Koran for women to wear the veil.

Remember that there a plethora of Muslim teachers and interpreters. There is no such thing as "orthodoxy."

It is an extreme practice. It is never right for a woman to hide behind a veil and shut herself off from people in the community. But it is particularly wrong in Britain, where it is alien to the mainstream culture for someone to walk around wearing a mask. The veil restricts women, it stops them achieving their full potential in all areas of their life and it stops them communicating. It sends out a clear message: “I do not want to be part of your society.”

Some Muslim women say that it is their choice to wear it; I don’t agree. Why would any woman living in a tolerant country freely choose to wear such a restrictive garment? What these women are really saying is that they adopt the veil because they believe that they should have less freedom than men, and that if they did not wear the veil men would not be accountable for their uncontrollable urges — so women must cover-up so as not to tempt men. What kind of a message does that send to women?

This is the key point that is mysogynistic: the relations between the sexes are skewed to pin sexual sins on women, and paint men as innocent victims. Then she hits the other key point about "freedom:"

But a lot of women are not free to choose. Girls as young as three or four are wearing the hijab to school — that is not a freely made choice. Girls under 16 should certainly not have to wear it to school. And behind the closed doors of some Muslim houses, women are told to wear the hijab and the veil. These are the girls that are hidden away, they are not allowed to go to universities, they have little choice in who they marry, in many cases they are kept down by the threat of violence.

So if we accept the faulty premise that only some can speak to various questions, we have now met that silly criterion. Will this voice carry weight? Or will it be smacked down by others as "unorthodox" or "selfish"?

This is my message to British Muslim women — if you want your daughters to take advantage of all the opportunities that Britain has to offer, do not encourage them to wear the veil. We must unite against the radical Muslim men who would love women to be hidden, unseen and unheard.

The other faulty argument which paralyses the religous-minded is that either all religions are treated the same, or there is unfair discrimination. Discrimination is not necessarily a bad thing (we do it every time we step off the curb, in distinguishing if it's prudent to cross the street). Until we can have a rational and civil debate about what religious practices build a better society and which don't, we'll be slaves to a false egalitarianism. Then Muslims and Christians and Wiccans will sink along with the Satanists and the Talibani -- because we couldn't distinguish what promotes authentic human rights and what suppressed them.

Does sex sell?

Evidently, it doesn't sell well to women, which is interesting, according to this study.

"After analyzing the data, we found that female consumers only saw two types of beauty: wholesome and sexy-sensual," Goodman said.

For instance, the actress Katie Holmes is an example of "wholesome" while the Victoria's Secret models are "sexy-sensual," Goodman said.

"Based on this research, it is evident that many advertisers may have been misled in using more sexual models to attract women to their products," Goodman explained.

What do women want?

"Presumably women desire to be more like the wholesome beauty models, and in turn, will purchase the products they endorse more readily than they would a product endorsed by a more overtly sexual model," Goodman said.

Well, obviously there is a difference between a 30 year old woman considering buying a car or microwave and a 14 year old girl deciding what is fashionable. It would be interesting (and encouraging) to see if there is a hard-wiring for modesty in women, despite a culture that seeped in selling promiscuity and overt sexuality to youngsters.

What do rabbits do?

Well, aren't we cute. We have a bunny logo in one industry, and a product named "rabbit" in another -- so let's let them team up and be clever together.

Volkswagen of America has launched a new advertising campaign about its "Rabbit" vehicle using Playboy "bunnies" and the appeal of "promiscuity" and "fornication."

“The return of the Rabbit to the North American market has been extremely well received. The Playboy opportunity was a great chance to unite two famous and iconic brands,” said Volkswagen's Director of Brand Innovation Kerri Martin.

Imagine that -- the whole point of the bunny was to indicate that men were to "breed like rabbits," except that Hugh Hefner and the industry made sure that abortion and contraception would always be available to avoid the "by-products" (or kill them off). So that leaves the indication that men are simply supposed to act like animals. Yup. We've seen that work well enough.

Dang. I began driving decades ago with a VW micro-bus. I now drive the snappiest little Passat on the planet. Why does the company have to outdo itself in insulting women this way?? We discussed the Playboy "facelift" here. We discussed another combination of brand name with porn here. The American Decency Association provides contact information here to make your reaction known.

So appalling, I'll direct you off-site

UPDATE: link fixed, sorry

Charmaine has the goods. No, the bads -- so bad I couldn't put it here. Tasteless and in dire need of your comments, directed to Nike.

From their site, they seem to want to take women seriously:

In 2003, Nike established its Global Women’s Leadership Council (GWLC) to promote and support the career advancement of women within the company; it is focused on advocacy, building connections, catalyzing action, and measuring results. Advisory Teams, involving 155 men and women from across Nike, were created to support the Council.

The Council can play an important role for Nike, as we work to become the employer and brand of choice for talented women around the world.

The 13-member Council hosted Nike’s second Global Women's Symposium early in 2005, bringing together more than 130 senior women from Nike offices around the world to discuss how to advance women at Nike and make Nike a premiere workplace for women.

Participants were updated on the progress made since the first Global Women's Symposium in January 2003, learned more about the role of the GWLC, and heard the business case for diversity. Workshops covered a variety of topics: building relationships, discovering one's power and passion, and assuming personal responsibility and establishing a sphere of influence.

Leaders at the conference recognized the need to focus on concrete benchmarks, such as significant female representation in upper management, and channeling women leaders into Nike's internal talent pipeline. They agreed these would be the real marks of success; they also agreed the company definitely has room to improve in this area.

Many participants praised this Global Women's Symposium, calling it an inspirational day.

"There's such an intimate feeling among all of us," said Queenie Lee Kit Man, Apparel Business Director for China and a GWLC member. "This is so different from the meetings I am used to attending. It's just so powerful."

The event followed numerous meetings held for Nike women around the world in 2004. In the Americas, women in leadership positions met in Sao Palo, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Toronto. In Asia, meetings were held in Shanghai and Hong Kong. And women from our Europe, Middle East and Africa staffs met near our European headquarters in the Netherlands.

From the above list, "building relationships, discovering one's power and passion, and assuming personal responsibility and establishing a sphere of influence," which category, pray tell, does that ad help? In fact I would suggest it undermines every one of them. If you agree, let them know.