media again
April 15, 2009 by dontgetrats
the media…never our allyPosted in Uncategorized | Tagged media, objectification, sexism | 3 Comments
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Gender Agenda 
Pretentious Vassar student that I am, I was interested to observe the context of these misogynistic images as well as observing the images themselves. I thought Stiletto Revolt did a really good job analyzing them and breaking it down, and I was extraordinarily pissed off by the end (always a good feeling, right?). However, I also felt extraordinarily dis-empowered by the final message underneath all the pictures:
“We have no desire to censor anyone, and bear no illusions of destroying these media giants. Instead, our aim is to empower those of you negatively affected by these ads, so you can determine your own truth, and shape your own reality.”
My immediate reaction after seeing all those horrible ads was…WHAT?! After all that–after all those horrible sexist/racist/heteronormative advertisements, after recognizing all the damage they do to people’s self-esteem/body images–after all that, I do not understand how Stiletto Revolt can still write that the purpose of analyzing these images is so you can “shape your own reality.” How about all of those people whose realities are severely fucked up by these advertisements? Apparently they don’t matter, but we–the ones who have the luxurious time to scroll through a long blog post–do. If I took anything away from these images, it is that our reality is anything but personally constructed: society supplies us with images such as these to construct our vision of the world. If we want to break free from that, I think we need to recognize the umbrella of sexism we’re all living under, not retreat into the idea that we all live in our “own world.”
interesting observation, ben, i noticed it myself.
my take on this is:
when stiletto revolt wrote “We have no desire to censor anyone” i saw that her him or her wanting to make sure that readers wouldnt use that as an argument against the page, since free speech is protected constitutionally, it would be a dead end, so s/he just wanted to clear that up probably.
“bear no illusions of destroying these media giants” this would just be wise…destroying these media giants, using that particular webpage, or any number of organized assaults upon sexist media that stiletto revolt can manage, would be enormously difficult and maybe impossible.
“Instead, our aim is to empower those of you negatively affected by these ads, so you can determine your own truth, and shape your own reality” i thought that this was a call to give independence to women, such that their fucked up realities which have been previously socially determined, they can now feel empowered to break and form their own. that is what irene does when she decides to wear comfy clothes always, which arent socially acceptable (and i do this sometimes too)–she is rejecting her socially constructed expectation of how to dress and carry herself, and forming her own, with help of course from other disenchanted individuals.
i agree that this point of view is overly optimistic, very few people actually are able to overthrow the mantle of societal construction and build their own, better construct of what they should do or who they should be. but ideologically, im on board with stiletto revolt. i think that this is precisely the trajectory we want to embark upon–fighting while re-forming ourselves, and trying to show other women that they should be free to do so too, if they choose.
i meant to say, “interesting observation, ben, i noticed it myself, *as well*”