Sensible Erection | Killing Us Softly 4 - The Affects of Advertising on Our Views of Women And Femininity

Monday, 20 February 2012

Killing Us Softly 4 - The Affects of Advertising on Our Views of Women And Femininity

quote [ In this update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series, Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of femininity. ]

Extremely good talk given about advertising and how it affects our perceptions on woman and feminism. I recommend all men and women watch this. It's two parts and very well thought out and put together.

Second part in extended. Posted as NSFW due to sexualized content in the video from the ads it showcases.

http://youtu.be/E4-1xCf3I7U

[by Bodnoirbabe@12:36amGMT] [+10 Interesting]

Comments

afrasr said @ 12:52am GMT on 20th Feb
Ok, I have an ax to grind with this, in terms of modern advertising.

Now that most of the big names like vogue, cosmo etc are run by women, have women editors etc.

Why aren't they being held accountable for this stuff?

Oh women run all these things.... but it's still all the mans fault?

Bodnoirbabe said @ 1:02am GMT on 20th Feb
Well, some actually are. If you watch to the end, you'll see examples of people who run magazines and fashion shows putting their feet down.

But a big reason not a lot of them are doing it is because it sells. They are in charge of selling the magazine, making it popular. They are more concerned with the bottom line than with the effects it has on the people reading it.

afrasr said @ 1:25am GMT on 20th Feb
Well, some actually are. If you watch to the end, you'll see examples of people who run magazines and fashion shows putting their feet down.

Yeah but it only seems to be like that when people are pressing them on it. You take a look at any mag now days and they are still shopped to hell.

They only seem to care when it affects sales.

sanepride said @ 1:02am GMT on 20th Feb
Is anybody saying it's 'all the mans fault'? Seems like if there's fault it's with not with a particular gender as a whole, but a relentless culture of consumerism.

afrasr said @ 1:10am GMT on 20th Feb
yeah stuff like this kind of touches a nerve with me, because I have had a nasty feminist encounter more than a few times about stuff like this.

When you point out that mags like this are usually all run by women, and then prove it by looking up editors etc...they tend to get REALLY nasty about it.

I agree with the video, the images portrayed are awful. We should be showing healthy women, not emaciated skeletons.

But then again, when you point out that men are emasculated in all forms of ads as being either walking wallets, or hopeless "can't look after themselves" house husbands, not an eyelid is batted.

The Advertising industry is the scum of the earth, and always has been... is my larger point.

Bodnoirbabe said @ 1:35am GMT on 20th Feb
I'm starting to doubt you even actually watched the videos because there is no feminist slant to this issue. She doesn't equate anything to men at all. As a matter of fact she does go into small detail about how she's seeing the same thing starting to happen to men in advertising. She's not a crazy feminist blaming men, she is saying there is a problem with the advertising and consumption of it.

afrasr said @ 1:56am GMT on 20th Feb
Yup, and until women care, and boycott the mags that do it, nothing will change.

I agree the presenter is not a crazy feminist, I have had run ins with feminists who have been on a similar rant is all.

Sorry, I am in a bit of a mood tonight and I don't mean to take it out on you.

I just see articles like this every year, and it's the same as last year.

They only care about their sales numbers, so until women go one a sustained campaign of boycotting celeb and fashion mags, the industry won't change.

spite48 said @ 3:29am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
She makes a great point, and has chosen fantastic examples. But 40 years of lecturing won't change much. A new paradigm must make money and set an example which people want to emulate.

I thought her interpretation of the hair product ad that talked about breasts was unfair. I thought it was pretty transparently saying that 'No woman is satisfied with their breasts, that breasts which would be perfect for one woman, may not be valued by the woman who has them - you can't control your breasts, but you can control your hair.' In other words, that ad seemed to suggest to me that breasts should be accepted in the form you receive them in. That particular ad, and her reaction to it seemed out of place with obviously objectionable ads which depicted violence against women, impossible physiques, etc.

Anyhow, our culture is complicated, illogical and arbitrary. We fear exposing our kids to nudity more than we fear exposing them to violence and cruelty. We suggest that women are only sexy if they are simultaneously innocent and whorish, sweet and kinky, and assertively submissive. Our culture isn't readily going to change those views unless the new paradigm is sexy and profitable. But you can't sell men and women "Stay they way you are Cream". Porn in which normal looking people have respectful and gentle intercourse as equals without objectification or power imbalance will get boring pretty quickly. Doesn't it have to be up to individuals to decide how crazy they are going to let our culture make them?

snowfox said @ 7:28pm GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
But you can't sell men and women "Stay they way you are Cream".

They do. They call it age-defying moisturizer and it is supposed to keep you from getting any older than you already are.

mechanical contrivance said @ 9:36pm GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 WTF]
This girl must have fallen into a vat of the stuff.

mechanical contrivance said @ 9:46pm GMT on 20th Feb
Also, haven't seen you in a while. How's the business going?

snowfox said @ 4:13am GMT on 21st Feb
Been busy avoiding the Secret Santa problems. Will get to them after I make some bookings.

Business is crazy. Sooooo crazy.

damnit said @ 3:17am GMT on 20th Feb
Even if these are run by women, they still have a business to attend to. It's still a man's world.

KingPellinore said @ 3:50am GMT on 20th Feb
It isn't about whose fault it is. Just because women are doing it doesn'e mean it isn't bad for women.

afrasr said @ 4:16am GMT on 20th Feb
and I completely agree.

I have just run into the types who go "Look what sexist pigs make us do!" when no man wants women to look like that.

It'd be like shagging a mechano set.... all jagged edges and points !

That's the opposite of what men what !

afrasr said @ 4:38am GMT on 20th Feb
err want

Didel said @ 1:24am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
I picked up one of my sisters fashion magazines the other day just to flip through. I was amazed at first of all how much of it was just advertisements, but second of all, how it really did sell the idea of a "perfect" female form. Even I, who loves my pretty women, found it a bit disconcerting.

But I guess it was a fashion magazine, so what do you expect? It's an industry based solely around selling an image.

loomspace said @ 1:41am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
Absolutely. How are women who choose to follow mainstream fashion somehow victimized by it? How are men who are interested in those types of women somehow being distorted by the womens' choice to follow that culture? Quirky, edgy, etc fashion is plentiful and preferred by (to be blunt) those with a shot at understanding themselves and their place in the world. Of course the sort of people to follow mainstream fashion are distorted by it. It's their base nature to conform and fit in.

Bodnoirbabe said @ 1:44am GMT on 20th Feb
Because it's not just in mainstream fashion. The advertisements are found all over. Billboards, commercials, etc. It is part and parcel of basic advertising.

loomspace said @ 2:48am GMT on 20th Feb
Yes, that's why I consider it mainstream.

Bodnoirbabe said @ 6:12am GMT on 20th Feb
What I meant is it's beyond fashion. It's used to advertise everything.

theolypse said @ 6:44am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1]
If I started slipping heroin into your bottles when you were an infant and personally controlled the largest and most available supply, then as an adult you chose to accept ridiculous bullshit conditions I set on access to my heroin stockpiles, how much sympathy would you want?

theolypse said @ 12:29pm GMT on 21st Feb
In case it was unclear, the heroin in this analogy is approval, and we're almost all born addicted. People who aren't get labels like Asperger's and Sociopathy.

snowfox said @ 7:20pm GMT on 20th Feb
It wouldn't be a problem if it were not paired with the message that a woman's primary value is her appearance, not her accomplishments.

scojam said @ 2:02am GMT on 20th Feb
Well my doctor was happy when he checked my blood pressure and saw it was down. I said that it probably was down because they had taken all the fashion magazines out of the waiting room.

Two things that really bug me is that for some reason in adds for games they always emphasis the kid beating "dad".

The other is the use of the name Bob to identify some klutz who is doing everything wrong.

smoug said @ 2:30am GMT on 20th Feb
But didn't Enzyte Bob supposedly have a massive penis?

mechanical contrivance said @ 3:04am GMT on 20th Feb
I am Bob's huge cock.

Hactar said @ 3:15am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Informative]
I am Bob's lengthy jail term

afrasr said @ 3:21am GMT on 20th Feb
I am Bob's violated asshole..

rndmnmbr said @ 7:15am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Funny]
I am Bob's duodenum. I just laid eyes on my very first glans.

mechanical contrivance said @ 9:40pm GMT on 20th Feb
Um, there's no glans in the duodenum. At least there shouldn't be.

rndmnmbr said @ 10:16pm GMT on 20th Feb
That's the point - if ever a duodenum meets a glans, there are problems.

spite48 said @ 10:38pm GMT on 20th Feb
Jokes aren't funny if the punchline is mundane and expected.

RhesusMonkey said @ 9:25pm GMT on 20th Feb
That's because women aren't competitive and are more easily controlled through their docile nature.

And seriously, Bob is a fucking klutz.

rezties said @ 3:50am GMT on 20th Feb

In an effort to make a point, the narrator\author uses hasty generalizations and misleading vividness a bit too much, and ends up sounding like she simply has an agenda over what is otherwise a valid and important problem.
I agree with the lack of scruples in advertising, but the video is a little too feminist to be taken seriously.
It's like she's pidgeonholing a greater problem into a concise feminist agenda.
Men and women 'live in different worlds', indeed, but men also have their own censures to endure, and in advertising's eyes, we are all equally worthless. My car, my clothes, my teeth, my job, my 8% bodyfat and my house are not good enough, if I were to believe what I see, and anyone disagreeing can offer me a refund on the last 2 years' gym membership for this 6-pack and these guns. Because I needed it.

Bodnoirbabe said @ 6:19am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:2]
...but the video is a little too feminist to be taken seriously.

That is incredibly offensive. The video brings up extremely valid and timely problems. It does not seek to badger or batter men and it is not militaristic in it's points. For you to say it's too feminist and brush it off is so out of touch it boggles my mind.

EPT said @ 7:55am GMT on 20th Feb
I hear ya buddy... but a) women still have it worse; and b) it's not a competition.

rezties said @ 8:21am GMT on 20th Feb
If it's not a competition, and indeed it isn't, then it doesn't matter who has it worse, though women indeed do.
But you can't solve a whole problem by merely addressing one part of it., E.G "Crime is bad -- look at how many hookers there are on the street. Let's get them off the streets. Buy them sandwiches." What about the rest of the crime? What about the rest of shameless advertising?

The only hope is that the rest of the world finds inspiration in a success of this awareness effort and follows suit in all sorts of areas. I, for one, have never met anyone that finds any appeal in how skinny runway models are. "Gross" is a more common consensus.

EPT said @ 8:33am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Underrated]
Towards the end of the talk she does talk about the objectification of men, and while bad in itself, at least the objectification is of power, and not one of subservience, ridicule, or blending into the background.

And I gotta agree on the grossly skinny thing; the most vicious commentators on women's appearance is a particular subset of women, fussing over stuff that they then complain men don't notice. Unfortunately it's this demographic that gives the fashion industry the audience it needs to survive. But what's important to note in Kilbourne's speech is that she's not saying "men v women", she's saying "advertising v women, and men a bit, too". There's no mention of patriarchy or male conspiracy or anything like that. Just what advertising does.

Bodnoirbabe said @ 3:33pm GMT on 20th Feb
+1 Exactly. I know that as soon as women bring up issues that affect them a lot of men think they're being attacked. This isn't always the case. This by and large affects women because we're being so blatantly targeted more often, but it also affects men because your perceptions are being played with.

It's an issue for both genders and she makes that clear in keeping it about the advertising and it's effects, not about how "men" are doing it to us. Because you're not.

Feminism isn't just for women. Men have a clear stake in the fight and should realize that working together to fix the patriarchy often helps them as well as women.

theolypse said @ 9:23am GMT on 20th Feb
Body image concerns have recently been surging among Western men. They're very nearly at the level reported among Western women, now. Naturally, this means the previous several thousand years have been balanced, and this single data point indicative of the whole issue, yes?

IronMahatma said @ 3:53am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:3 Underrated]
Effects not affects.

GordonGuano said @ 4:14am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
To tie this in with your last post, what about all those misleading sex scenes in movies, where a little bit of gentle rocking in the missionary position is all it takes to get a woman off? Think of all the men who think they're doing something wrong if their lady isn't raking her nails down their back 45 seconds after the saxophone starts...

afrasr said @ 4:20am GMT on 20th Feb
not to mention that they don't portray women liking sex as much as we do.

I find the biggest "slut shame" people, are other women.

These days I translate slut as "she is getting more man attention than me, and I am being passive aggressive about it"

dreamingzephyr said @ 2:11pm GMT on 20th Feb
Even someone as sex-positive and slutastic as myself can fall into judging another woman in this way. Just yesterday I condescended on someone for having "38DD" in her Twitter handle and a Twitter description of "girl next door, exhibitionist, east coast transplant trapped in the Midwest, type A, perpetually horny, slave to fashion, equal opportunity in the bedroom :)"

Then I caught myself, scolded myself, and realized that could just as easily describe me minus the Midwest and type A.

afrasr said @ 10:51pm GMT on 20th Feb [Score:2 Funny]
we should be friends >_>

theolypse said @ 6:45am GMT on 20th Feb
Wait. Saxophone?

Shit, I've been using the wrong woodwind all this time.

bruceski said @ 7:14am GMT on 20th Feb
Now I'm imagining sex to standard Klezmer clarinet. One of the bouncy tunes. It doesn't *quite* fit.

cb361 said @ 7:24am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:3 Funny]
I'm English. We only fuck to Yackety Sax.

RedRiverRat said @ 10:09am GMT on 20th Feb
Yackety Sex.

cb361 said @ 12:19pm GMT on 20th Feb
That's what google suggested when I was trying to check the spelling.

theolypse said @ 9:25am GMT on 20th Feb
Wait, you play the saxophone?

mrcucumber said @ 1:51pm GMT on 20th Feb
Saxophone is not a woodwind instrument, but maybe you knew that and was trying to make a funny.

mky said @ 7:08pm GMT on 20th Feb [Score:3 Informative]
?
Saxaphones have reeds, ergo they are woodwinds. Like oboes and clarinets. As ooposed to trumpets and tubas, which are classified as "brass" based on the type of mouthpiece used. That a sax is made of brass, has nothing to do with it.

mrcucumber said @ 7:33pm GMT on 20th Feb
You're absolutely correct. I'm an ass. Thanks for correcting me.

mky said @ 7:58pm GMT on 20th Feb
You're welcome. No worries.

mrcucumber said @ 8:34pm GMT on 20th Feb
I'm supposed to know these things based on my musical training. Sometimes, more often lately, I have brain hiccups.

I should stop drinking.

mechanical contrivance said @ 9:45pm GMT on 20th Feb
My drummer friend says the piano is a percussion instrument and I say it's a string instrument. Who's right?

theolypse said @ 10:57pm GMT on 20th Feb
John Cage.

eIfish said @ 1:29am GMT on 21st Feb
I've seen Roger Taylor turn a cello into a string and percussion instrument...

mechanical contrivance said @ 1:30am GMT on 21st Feb
Queen Roger Taylor or Duran Duran Roger Taylor?

mrklipp said @ 2:54am GMT on 21st Feb [Score:4 Funny]
Listen up, because this may be the only time you'll ever hear this.

The drummer is right.

afrasr said @ 5:54am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Interesting]
I'll just leave this here

bruceski said @ 7:18am GMT on 20th Feb
Where can you take ten pounds off her that a a guy wouldn't consider a detriment?

EPT said @ 8:39am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Funny]
Her hair.

lilmookieesquire said @ 8:26pm GMT on 20th Feb
Get out of my mind!

EPT said @ 7:54am GMT on 21st Feb
But I like fossicking in here!

oo, what's that!

theolypse said @ 9:27am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:2]
Where can she take ten pounds off herself that she wouldn't consider a detriment?

bruceski said @ 4:35pm GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
If she'd be happier with 10 pounds off I assume she has an answer. Given that, can we trust her judgement?

mechanical contrivance said @ 9:48pm GMT on 20th Feb
Maybe she's talking about donating an organ.

theolypse said @ 10:59pm GMT on 20th Feb
I'd rather hers than J. Random Hasacock's.

eIfish said @ 8:42pm GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Underrated]
So what's the message?

You can be comfortable with your appearance if you just spend more than would be required to purchase a car to acquire this dress?

How very progressive.

Caffeine said @ 11:41pm GMT on 21st Feb
Cars cost less than $440?

midden said @ 5:44pm GMT on 21st Feb
No kneecaps?

Ebichuman said @ 6:11am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:2 Insightful]
I finished watching the whole thing. I agree with much of what she said (even if I didn't agree with every ad she interpreted), but the annoying part is that she didn't really tell me anything new either--just organized the information better than I've seen it organized before.

Or, said a different way, I recognize that contemporary advertising of women is not reflective of reality and leads to various problems for both men and women. What would be really interesting is for someone to propose a practical solution, which she fails to do.

She almost does it: at 19:50 in the second part, she proposes "solutions," but they're depressingly conclusory. Solutions like, and I quote, "pay attention and recognize that this affects us all" and "change the norms and change the attitudes."

Fine, but it punts the hard questions: how do you do that for an entire society full of people inculcated, basically to each man or woman, with a certain set of stereotypes; how do you redirect the momentum already present in magazines, ads, and other media; how do you separate a somewhat inherently natural ideal of beauty involving big-eyed, slender-with-curves, big-breasted women, from the not-quite-the-same, but not-quite-different contemporary fetishism of it; how do you educate girls, wives, mothers, daughters, husbands, sons, boyfriends, boys -- each in each role with a different socially-constructed fiction of their bodies -- to reach a fair and "realistic" ideal?

I guess those are the harder questions I would have liked her to at least try to answer. The fact that the video raised these questions is a credit to it, and the video was entertaining as-is, but this is an old enough problem that "awareness-raising" videos are a bit superfluous. If you know where you want society to end up as clearly as this woman, the least you can do is draw for it a somewhat more detailed map.

rndmnmbr said @ 7:23am GMT on 20th Feb
The solution would work over the same span of time as the original problem arose, ie. generations. To "fix" this problem would require long-term planning and execution on a scale that humanity has not yet demonstrated. Not to mention the whole other can of worms that would be opened by successful massive cultural modification, ie. how do we make sure it's not used for evil purposes?

Hell, with the backlash the "optimal" female form is getting now, we're likely already on the path of naturally altering our collective opinion on the subject. It'll just take another 150 years or so to see the effects.

Ebichuman said @ 1:36pm GMT on 20th Feb
I'm sure you're right. One answer is that I'm always frustrated by things that can't be accomplished within my life time. My attitude is always, "It's a problem? Ok, let's figure out a solution and just do it."

But another answer is that even if it takes 150 years, I'd like for someone who has obviously thought about it as much as Jean Kilbourne to propose some clear success metrics, clear steps to achieve them, and a practical way to implement them.

EPT said @ 8:03am GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Underrated]
how do you redirect the momentum already present in magazines, ads, and other media

You can do it by raising consciousness of the issue, say, giving lectures about it to a great many young people who in turn can spread the message. That sort of thing.

Ebichuman said @ 1:25pm GMT on 20th Feb
I wasn't clear. I meant with that line: how do you redirect the top-down habits of editors, photo retouchers, and everyone else in the production-side of the fashion-magazine and advertising food chain?

I'm not claiming that awareness-raising doesn't have some incidental benefits in the areas I asked about. But my point is still that if she wants a certain reality to come about, there are far more effectual ways to accomplish it than to just awareness-raise until everyone collectively wills it so.

Even if you could accomplish the feat of making everyone simultaneously want "bad portrayals to stop," what practically must change once everyone is in that state? How do we unmix the eggs of human sexuality that are now tightly fused with the unhealthy portrayals she talks about? Surely she has some ideas of more specificity and clarity than "pay attention" and "change norms and attitudes."

It frustrated me after an otherwise good talk from a very intelligent person, and it's a sentiment I share at some level of abstraction when I watch most "awareness-raising" videos.

Bodnoirbabe said @ 3:28pm GMT on 20th Feb
Editors and those from the top down by and large do it because it is profitable. However, if you have a large user base that suddenly starts to go against what they are showcasing, then they will change their tune. The best way to get the user base to boycott is to make them aware there is a problem.

A lot of people don't even think this is an issue, as can be evidenced in some of the replies right here in this thread. Spreading awareness is the correct first step in changing things. Activism comes with awareness and we're starting to see more and more of that. Companies, albeit in Europe, are starting, very slowly, to change. Small steps may be small, but they DO lead to larger things.

EPT said @ 7:50am GMT on 21st Feb
It's certainly not easy, but to take a statement on face value:

Even if you could accomplish the feat of making everyone simultaneously want "bad portrayals to stop," what practically must change once everyone is in that state?

If a magic wand was waved and everyone (or 'enough of everyone') changed literally overnight, not much more would need to be actively done. People would vote with their feet and simply not follow the fashion circles because they'd see more of the harm and less of the glam. Being more aware of issues would also mean people would press each other less, and the positive feedback cycle would be largely broken.

But in the real world, how do we do it? It's really difficult while allowing freedom of expression. Keep raising consciousness. Educate people not just on this, but on the basic precepts of asking questions and intelligently deciding for yourself.

EPT said @ 8:02am GMT on 20th Feb
It was a good talk, but one minor issue I had was the 'light-skinned' thing - after wandering through Vietnam, it was clear that the Vietnamese value light skin. Young women everywhere have hooded tops, sometimes covering their entire faces, with flaps that go over the hands to protect them as well (and yes, it was only the women). But it had nothing to do with any form of cultural imperialism - it's simply that a tan means you're a farmer, a labourer, and therefore you have less social status. Light skin in the US (or the anglosphere) is one thing, but it doesn't automatically follow that all desire for light skin is due to our marketing.

I do think she could have highlighted a little better the point that while it happens to men as well, women have it far worse. She didn't really spend much time on it. The infantilisation of women would have been a good touchstone there - women are frequently made to look like children in ads (even just in her examples), but I honestly can't remember a single ad where a man has been made to appear like a child, except in cases of obvious comedy. I hate the stereotype of the deadbeat dad as the next bloke, but if you go deeper than mere surface content, men are much better off than women.

The things that advertising makes men want may be ruinous to their financial well-being, but it's rare for them to be ruinous to their physical or mental well-being.

EPT said @ 8:26am GMT on 20th Feb
Spoke too soon - wrote that with 10 minutes left to go. In those minutes she returns to the topic. She does make one error though - women live in a world where they are more often harrassed and raped, but she also says beaten as well, trying to suggest that men aren't the victim of violence. Domestic violence is much more evenly spread than it appears, though men still get the slight edge as perpetrators, and men are much more likely to be on the receiving end of violence from strangers. The part where she talked about men not supposed to be having a feminine side - that directly flows into young men fighting each other over imagines slights (and right through to murdering each other in harsher areas).

Apart from that, it was a pretty good talk, I thought, and very little of it seemed to be pushing an agenda. It's mostly stuff we know on SE, though there were a few gems, and it never hurts to polish up again. The infantilisation was new to me as a concept - I knew it in manga, but never twigged that there was similar in mainstream advertising (not that I see the kinds of ads her samples were from...).

RedRiverRat said @ 10:07am GMT on 20th Feb

Can't really offer an opinion since Im a guy. I do think it's shameful that women are so ... marginalized in advertising.

The women in my life have been by far stronger than me and have helped me find my place in this crazy world.

krimz said @ 10:30am GMT on 20th Feb
I wouldn't say that the problem is that women are marginalized in advertising, it's more like they're relentlessly targeted and that the aim is to make them feel shitty about themselves.

Lacuna said @ 1:46pm GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Underrated]
When advertising tells you that you aren't good enough the way you are, they also simultaneously present the idea that you can BUY your way to being the way you want. This is the issue: because consumerism won't fix how you feel about yourself, only you can do that. A new Gucci dress might make you feel good the first time you put it on, but by the end of the night you'll have picked apart how you look in it and you won't be happy any more.

That's the whole idea: not that women are the only one's targeted, not that this is a womens rights idea: but that women are typically the "shoppers" of a family and if their insecurities can be exploited for profit, well, let's get to it.

Men aren't immune to this either, they live in this same sea of relentless advertising, and they are by no means being left out. Remember the bod-man commercials? How were those not objectifying and ridiculous? But we can't point it out as easily because our culture has set up stereotypes that say in many ways it is acceptable to objectify men; that in fact, they like it. Axe ran a whole marketing campaign on this idea. Selling a product for its "manliness" is just as screwed up as selling something for it's ability to make your breasts look bigger.

And her idea about spreading awareness? That's the whole point. You have to educate the general public about these things precisely because of what she says in the opening lines-- most people think they are immune to advertising. The only way to be able to see through it, really, though, is to understand it's mechanics. And the more people who become aware of how screwed up it is; the more editors we are going to have getting hired at these magazines who do have ethics and a sense of conscience. And then it will change.

madfishmonger said @ 3:00pm GMT on 20th Feb
I thought it was a really interesting point she made about how men and women are objectified in such different ways. Men are made to look more powerful, stronger, and women are weaker and more vulnerable. Objectification bothers me.

theolypse said @ 11:03pm GMT on 20th Feb
Check respective stripper tropes for a really extreme illustration of that divide.

yogi said @ 3:09pm GMT on 20th Feb [Score:2]
Lacuna's comment is the best rendition of Kilbourne's intent.

I'm going to pull a little rank here: I've known Jean Kilbourne for about 10 years or so. We serve on the board of a nonprofit called Teen Talking Circles, which helps teens do just that--gather in meetings to talk deeply about their lives. The young women constantly talk about the barrage of advertising and pressure they feel. The young men join once they see their counterparts involved, and they, too, begin to see how subjugated women are in our society.

Kilbourne is a smart woman who has had a lot of experience in the field she wishes to expose. She is steady, on point, strong, and resolute in her effort to help her fellow women be treated better, much better, by our society.

Her work and this latest effort are reflected by other efforts, most particularly Terri Hardesty's movie called New Wrinkle, a movie about women aging; and the wife of Gavin Newsom (currently Lt. Gov of Cal--he's an all around sleaze bag), but his wife Jennifer Siebel, did a documentary called Miss Representation, which is about how the media has contributed to the underrepresentation of women in positions of power. Meh, cuz of the Screwsom association, but the point holds.

Spreading awareness is the whole point. I had breakfast last week with an African-american woman colleague who is trying to level up the low self-esteem of women in her culture. And look at the war on women now ramping up--the Repugs all over the nation are trying to shut down abortion and women's rights.

So Kilbourne's effort is just one piece of the BA puzzle. BTW, her wikipedia entry doesn't have it, but at one time she dated Jerzy Kosinski. THAT took strength.

madfishmonger said @ 2:59pm GMT on 20th Feb
My whole life I have been told by the media that I am not attractive. I have naturally large hips and breasts, thick thighs. No matter how much weight I lose (and I have no desire to be a 90-pound waif, thanks), I can't alter the size of my hips. Not only am I punished for this by never having seen anyone in the media who looks anything like me (Scarlett Johanson is probably the closest), but I am punished by there not being any clothing made to fit people like me. Not only is the ideal beauty shown in advertizing, it's built right in to the clothes we're supposed to wear.

Croatia said @ 3:06pm GMT on 20th Feb [Score:1 Underrated]
You sound pretty fucking hot to me

afrasr said @ 3:55pm GMT on 20th Feb
having met her in person.... she is ^_^

CapnSilver said @ 12:53am GMT on 21st Feb
I can assure you you're not the misshapen lump of a girl you make yourself out to be.

krimz said @ 11:31am GMT on 21st Feb
heffalumps are hot.

madfishmonger said @ 3:07pm GMT on 20th Feb
There's a local bus ad that really bothers me. It's for a rock radio station, but I can't seem to find an image of it. It's a woman (not extremely thin), headless, in a busty black dress lounging alongside a guitar. Her being headless (removing her personality, de-humanizing her) is bad enough, but the copy is the part that really bothers me. It says "It's all about the rack" with the A painted over with an O. If it simply said "It's all about the rock" and had a lovely woman with a guitar, it wouldn't bother me, but the meaning is clear: you don't even need to be a whole person, the sexual organs are the only important aspect of a woman.

yogi said @ 3:25pm GMT on 20th Feb
There you go. Ads like this are all over. They sell things we don't need for the promise of a few minutes of supposedly feeling good.

lilmookieesquire said @ 8:22pm GMT on 20th Feb
Sounds like someone got ripped off by an ad agency...

mechanical contrivance said @ 9:52pm GMT on 20th Feb
I guess that's why fleshlights and rubber cocks exist.

madfishmonger said @ 4:43pm GMT on 20th Feb [Score:2 Underrated]
As a side grammar note, it's effect, not affect.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

IBM said @ 7:03pm GMT on 20th Feb

eIfish said @ 8:47pm GMT on 20th Feb
OOI, how do you know the original photo is the original photo?

It's just as common to shoop out secondary sexual features to avoid offending the Disney audience...

sacrelicious said @ 9:22pm GMT on 20th Feb
you could always watch the film to prove it one way or the other.

but then I tried watching it once, so I can't blame you if you don't want to.

IBM said @ 4:57pm GMT on 21st Feb
it's a studio photo. All poster art usually is.

sacrelicious said @ 11:38pm GMT on 21st Feb
but I imagine her breast under that costume would appear at some point in the movie.

but I can't know for sure, because I've yet to stay awake more than ten minutes into it.

theolypse said @ 11:05pm GMT on 20th Feb
Didn't look up as high as the face, huh?

eIfish said @ 1:24am GMT on 21st Feb
Face could just be shopped differently.

eIfish said @ 1:26am GMT on 21st Feb
That is to say, no normal person has pure uniform white sclera...

theolypse said @ 3:45am GMT on 21st Feb
Bowdlerizing is rarely so careful to maintain plausibility, though.

sacrelicious said @ 9:11pm GMT on 20th Feb
she's absolutely right about everything...

except she somewhat dismisses the increasing trend towards men being marketed to through similar means. yes women have it worst, and women were treated this way first, but the media DOES nurture and then exploit men's feelings of physical inadequacy, and in ways that are becoming more and more similar to the ways in which women have been marketed to. while the narrative for women has traditionally been "well, you *do* want to find/keep a husband, don't you?", more and more we are seeing ads targeted towards men with the message "well, you *do* want to get laid, don't you?" and even the penis size comparison that she directly dismissed as something the media does not do, is in fact something the media absolutely does exploit. more often than not, to sell bogus penis enlargement pills, but it can also be found in other contexts beyond that ever more frequently.

I say that all not to suggest that men and women got is bad all around, so it's okay as long as it's more equally bad. rather, I say this to advance her agenda, the feminist agenda, by pointing out that these are no longer just women's issues, but men's issues as well. what we men are seeing in the media's increasing manufacturing, nurturing and exploitation of women's insecurities is not something that does not affect us, but rather a vision of what we can expect to be burdened by just as soon as the advertising media figures out how to make men feel similar inadequacies. because guess what: once a brand has saturated the women's products market, the only way to expand is to create that need in men as well. we are seeing it happening right now, and we will see it happening ever more until it reaches equilibrium, and that's not good for any of us.

happiest_sadist said @ 1:41am GMT on 21st Feb
Advertising as we know it is pernicious garbage for more reasons than just this.
Advertising is OK with me when it's basic text blurbs like AdSense. I do want to know about certain products and services, I just don't want some egregious scumbag getting in my face and shouting at me about them. For this reason, I can't watch TV or most YouTube videos. I can't even go to the goddamn movies anymore.

The only solution I can think of is to avoid this sort of advertising to the extent possible (no more moviegoing, radio listening, magazine reading, TV watching, etc.) and to complain loudly when it's unavoidable. Refuse to buy the products that are advertised and communicate your reasons to the vendor. Don't bother trying to talk to the advertisers- they think they know what works, and that's all they care about. If their numbers go down, maybe then they will start caring.

I know this isn't practical for a lot of people, and I can't claim that I follow this method religiously myself. I wish there were an easier way, but if there is one I don't know about it.

bltrocker said @ 1:55am GMT on 21st Feb
You sound like you'd be off the charts on the fun-meter.

Movies are awesome. Some TV is awesome. Some comics are awesome. I do not advocate your suggestion; I do not condone stripping great entertainment from the human experience to prove a point about ads.

happiest_sadist said @ 7:05am GMT on 21st Feb
You sound like you didn't understand what I said.

I didn't say "don't watch TV or go to the movies", and I didn't mention comics at all. I can't go to the movies or watch TV because the annoying adverts ruin the experience for me.
I do read lots of comics, but I don't read ones that feature annoying ads. In fact, none of the TPBs I have on my shelf have any ads at all (except for the fake ones in Watchmen.)

I have lots of other ways to have fun than being passively entertained in between bouts of shouty insults from some marketard. One of my favorite pastimes is telling people like that to fuck off. I'm not judging anyone who doesn't want to do that or doesn't have time.

So, thanks for your judgmental comments. It doesn't sound like you'd register on my fun-meter either, even as much as I enjoy BLTs and rock.

bltrocker said @ 2:50pm GMT on 21st Feb
You sound like you're getting butthurt about nothing.

My comments are judgmental insofar as I'm taking the comment you posted and conjuring a person in my head of who would say that. Comics are almost as bad as magazines most of the time, so I grouped the two.

You didn't command people to stop experiencing things with advertising, but you were implying that it is the only solution that you have come up with, so other people might want to try it unless they have a better idea. "Refuse to buy..." and "don't bother trying..." are worded as tips to others.

happiest_sadist said @ 8:49pm GMT on 21st Feb
Yeah, you're right- that came out a lot more butthurt than necessary. Sorry about that.

I wasn't just implying that it's the only solution I've come up with, though- I said it straight out. That's not to say it's the only solution available; others in this here thread have proposed solutions which may or may not be better. Other people might well want to try it if they don't have a better idea, since it's not actually tantamount to "stripping great entertainment from the human experience".

bltrocker said @ 9:24pm GMT on 21st Feb
I guess it differs from person to person, but I LOVE movies. From art house to blockbusters, if I couldn't watch movies anymore on the big screen, I would be pretty bummed.

I guess awareness of the issue, as some have pointed out here, as a solution is okay, but I don't (and it seems you don't, as well) see that causing significant change.

Also, "...so other people might want to try it unless they have a better idea" was the part I was trying to convey that you implied.

bltrocker said @ 1:44am GMT on 21st Feb
I don't get it. If you MUST peddle your wares to me, I would much prefer impossibly hot women and handsome men are being presented to me. Why would anyone ever want to buy vodka from a frumpy woman?

One of her points at the beginning that REALLY bothers me is the whole objectifying women in advertising is the first step in punching them in the face. Sorry, you're either an asshole that punches women or you're not. NO AMOUNT of advertising is going to convince me that I'm actually punching a bottle of Michelob named Catherine.

KingPellinore said @ 4:33am GMT on 21st Feb
Why would anyone ever want to buy vodka from a frumpy woman?"

I'm gonna go with, "because it's good vodka".

KingPellinore said @ 4:35am GMT on 21st Feb
Personally, I buy my vodka from an amicable, moustachioed Hindu man. But again, it's cheap, quality vodka I'm after.

bltrocker said @ 4:57am GMT on 21st Feb
Okay. How about, why would anyone want to be pitched an unknown vodka by a frumpy woman. If it's the same drink either way, I choose hottie.

KingPellinore said @ 5:09am GMT on 21st Feb
Why?

bltrocker said @ 5:16am GMT on 21st Feb
Because that advertisement would be less painful to watch. Both will cause me a little bit of annoyance, the one with a beautiful person less so.

Bodnoirbabe said @ 10:10am GMT on 21st Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
Why has it not crossed your mind that they should advertise the product and have no woman in there, hot or not?

mechanical contrivance said @ 11:31pm GMT on 21st Feb
It would seem to make sense for advertisements to focus on the product. So why do advertisers frequently use attractive people in their ads?

spite48 said @ 11:49pm GMT on 21st Feb [Score:1 Funny]
Because it works. Because we are social animals, and social psychology sells products:

Driving a spite48 special will get you laid by these attractive celebrities, make food taste better, and make you handsome, smart, rich and powerful. Buy one before your friends do. We're not legally allowed to say that owning one will make your penis bigger, but *wink*.

mrcucumber said @ 2:59pm GMT on 21st Feb
You should sign up for focus groups or market survey company interviews.

They'd love you.

KingPellinore said @ 4:49am GMT on 21st Feb
Like it or not, objectifying women IS a step toward punching them in the face. When you objectify someone, you demean their humanity. It's pretty intrinsic to the whole "object" definition. And just because you can undertake Step Objectify and not progress to Step Abuse doesn't mean Step Objectify isn't part one of a process that demeans women or any other person treated as an object, sexual or otherwise.

Look, I'm a fledgling when it comes to feminism. It used to piss me off when stuff like this got brought up. It still does piss me off and it kicks off a strong defensive reaction because, "hey, I'm not like that." and "I'm a decent guy." That's a good start, I think, but I've really just started looking around at how the world treats citizens of the lower class, women in particular, and that takes priority over my personal beef with the world.

For better or worse, women share this planet with us and we, as a society, male and female, have made it a better world for men than we have women. This is the issue that needs addressing, not which gender's fault it is.

bltrocker said @ 5:09am GMT on 21st Feb
Going to have to agree to disagree, I guess. I agree that being objectified when you don't want to be is not good, and since the female form is so interesting, many people do just that. What I won't budge on is that ads -> objectifying -> x -> y -> z -> girl punching. That's a bogus slippery slope, and I'm not for it. I just can't agree that adverts are setting the whole cascade off.

KingPellinore said @ 5:22am GMT on 21st Feb
OK...let's break this down and make sure we're speaking on the same terms.

I have, in my head, what "objectification" means. In my definition, "objectification" means a sort of devaluing of a person. Through it, a person is reduced to an object. Objectification, by my definition, discounts personality and selfhood.

That's already horrible, in my opinion, and requires no slippery slope leap to "girl punching" to be reprehensible. It demonstrably leads to devaluation of human beings, male and female.

bltrocker said @ 6:36am GMT on 21st Feb
That's fine if you're stuck on objectification. I don't really want to get caught in the quagmire of what exactly does it mean or if some forms of self-objectification are actually empowering, etc. That wasn't my point. My point is that it is a poor argument to imply that ads are a huge component of why women are getting hit.

spite48 said @ 8:10am GMT on 21st Feb [Score:1 Interesting]
Where does objectification begin, and appreciation end?

GordonGuano said @ 11:16am GMT on 21st Feb [Score:1 Underrated]
That's actually a very good question. To use an example above, I had never seen Christina Hendricks speak until last night when I watched Drive. (Side note: I could objectify the hell out of Ryan Gosling, but he can also act) To me she's that redhead from that show I've never seen with the spectacular rack. She only gets about three lines in Drive (about the same as Ryan Gosling, actually), so really I still can't say anything pro or con about her acting ability. In my mind, her breasts hold the most significant place, and the (from a bottle) redhead thing is a close second, but that's also the most information i've been given. So you could say that Cosmo objectifies her by putting her in a pushup bra on the cover, but given that I will never know her personally and only have a nodding acquaintance with her work as an actress, I can just appreciate looking at an attractive woman. But depending on how I feel that day, I might very well take a trip into objectification land.

Maybe the difference is one of degree and objectification happens when focus on an attribute is taken to the level of a fetish to the exclusion of any other parts. In the case of ads, the insidious way we impose ourselves onto their false reality when we really shouldn't is what does the damage.

theolypse said @ 12:25pm GMT on 21st Feb
You're making it harder to restrict you to the Troll position, asshat.

theolypse said @ 12:23pm GMT on 21st Feb
When the object acting like a subject would surprise you.

EPT said @ 8:02am GMT on 21st Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
'Objectification' doesn't mean everyone will become a spousal abuser, it means that the bar is lowered.

Part of the reasons why war has pretty much stopped these days is because of mass communication and travel - foreigners are no longer seen as reprehensible cariactures, objects to be stereotyped and easily loathed. They're seen as people who have families and desires. The televisation of the Vietnam War pretty much showed folks at home what it means to 'go and kill a slope'. Hey, they may look funny, but it's still just a guy. Not the bugbear object the posters made him out to be.

bltrocker said @ 3:33pm GMT on 21st Feb
I haven't seen a single response in this thread that would convince me that someone who would never hit their wife was turned into a wife-beater by advertising. All I've seen is feminist talking points and a bunch of back-patting.

I want to know what the REAL affect advertising has on the violence against women equation. Until I've seen a real link, the argument seems like speculation.

mrcucumber said @ 4:01pm GMT on 21st Feb
Cultural conditioning over time.

Bodnoirbabe said @ 4:38pm GMT on 21st Feb
Because when something is devalued, you don't treat it the way it should be treated. When you dehumanize someone, it's easier to treat them badly. It's easier to say they don't matter and therefor hurting them doesn't matter.

The hurting can be a metaphorical punch in the face or an actual punch in the face. But there is a punch.

Now, obviously this isn't something that happens to everyone but it is a big enough problem with enough people that it is an issue.

bltrocker said @ 10:01pm GMT on 21st Feb
Everyone is going in circles here. What I'm interested in is a metric by which you can say advertisements affect the propensity toward physical abuse. This is goofy and completely sidesteps the complexity of human behavior, but it might help express my point. If you were to say that a lifetime of absorbing misogynistic advertisements is equivalent to 20 kiloassholes (or kA), and a rating of 50 kA turns you into an asshole with the potential of violence toward women, then that's concerning. But what if you only gain 20 milliassholes?

What if different types of people are affected differently, and the the only people that will gain 20 kA, as opposed to 20 mA, already have above 50 kA collected?

I don't want to hear that advertisements lead to violence against women unless I'm shown a non-trivial effect.

KingPellinore said @ 12:52am GMT on 22nd Feb
I am not banging my head against this wall any further.

I know you think you're being cute, but GodDAMN, son.

bltrocker said @ 1:04am GMT on 22nd Feb
Well, you could y'know, accept that there is no causal evidence between advertising and physical abuse.

KingPellinore said @ 1:16am GMT on 22nd Feb
Do your own research.

bltrocker said @ 1:21am GMT on 22nd Feb
I did. I found a SINGLE CORRELATION study about men who have watched more sexual ads were more okay with with violence and bought into rape myth more often. It's surprising that you hold such strong beliefs without drawing from any science.

theolypse said @ 5:04am GMT on 22nd Feb
This is very reasonable skepticism. I'm going to bookmark your comment and go journal-digging.

bltrocker said @ 2:57pm GMT on 22nd Feb
PM me if you find a wealth of studies that I'm not aware of. Like I commented elsewhere, I only found a single weak correlation study.

theolypse said @ 5:14pm GMT on 22nd Feb
Yeah, absolutely. I'll tell you now that trying for a direct link looks unreasonable for study material on its face. No IRB would let you experimentally test a hypothesis that says you think you can induce domestic abuse. The most plausible positive outcome is going to be a transitive correlational link through attitudes.

dreamingzephyr said @ 4:39pm GMT on 21st Feb
It's not about creating a misogynist out of a compassionate person. It's about reenforcing specific attitudes regarding categories of people that shape us over the course of our lives.

bltrocker said @ 8:46pm GMT on 21st Feb
You seem to be echoing my sentiment. No one is going to be influenced to punch their wife by ads unless they are already looking for an excuse to do so.

KingPellinore said @ 8:49pm GMT on 21st Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
You're either trolling or being intentionally obtuse.

mrcucumber said @ 9:25pm GMT on 21st Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
Have you considered how long this type of advertising has been in effect?

A 12 year old, 22 year old, 32, 42, 52 and even a 62 year old have all been exposed to this kind of objectification of women. You fail to recognize that it is culturally ingrained, over decades. It's almost as if you've never seen a society or culture that treats women differently.

You're arguing as though nobody has seen this kind of approach to a paternalistic bordering on sexist society before, and therefore is illogical to assume adverts personifying women leads to spousal abuse.

mrcucumber said @ 9:47pm GMT on 21st Feb
Ugh
*depersonifying.

kichijoii said @ 12:52am GMT on 24th Feb
No one is going to be influenced to punch their wife by ads unless they are already looking for an excuse to do so.

Perfect Libertarian viewpoint.

KingPellinore said @ 4:46pm GMT on 21st Feb [Score:1 Interesting]
OK, go back and read the propaganda analogy EPT makes. It's a very apt analogy.

See, when the US used propaganda against the Japanese in WWII, it was easy to think of them as beneath us, due to attributing them with cartoonish, exaggerated characteristics that we USAns didn't share with them. They became objects to us and that's how we could tolerate shipping the ones who lived here into camps and dropping two nuclear bombs on civilian populated targets and few Americans would have said at the time that they didn't have it coming.

Now, advertising is pretty much privately funded propaganda. Its ultimate goal is to convince you that the brand of product it's selling represents the best choice you can make when choosing that kind of product. Now, obviously, you can't sample a beer or a cookie over the television and you can't try on a dress or a suit you see in a magazine, so advertisers rely on tricks like suggesting you'll get sex if you buy their product. With me so far?

Now, remember when I pointed out how we gave the Japanese cartoonish, exaggerated features in our propaganda? We're doing the same thing to people who appear in advertisements and it's largely women appearing in them. This creates a multifaceted problem. First, we're holding people, mostly women, to impossible standards of beauty. Second, it reinforces the idea that these women owe us something, since we fulfilled "part of the bargain" and bought the Budweiser or the Audi or whatever.

It's not going to turn me into an abuser any time soon and it probably won't turn anyone on this thread into one either. But propaganda serves to make the abnormal seem normal. We wouldn't normally cheer the deaths of millions and we wouldn't normally expect sex because we bought something unrelated to sex. But it's there and we do expect and it does all too often lead to violence.

GordonGuano said @ 4:53pm GMT on 21st Feb
One has to wonder, if a magic wand was waved to suddenly make everyone aware they were being manipulated, what the next evolution of advertising would be to counter it.

bltrocker said @ 9:12pm GMT on 21st Feb
Oh please. First, using the word "propaganda" with its extremely negative connotations is inflammatory and I don't think it serves a constructive purpose here. Even at its most innocent, ALL advertising is technically propaganda.

Next, for that analogy to stand, the main objective of ads would have to be the demeaning of women, which it isn't. Ads try to sell a product, with a possible side effect being the objectification of women.

Finally, getting gifts almost never hurts your chances of getting laid. But if you think it's a sure thing because you spent a couple bucks for your partner, and you get into a violent altercation over it, you are too stupid to not get into that fight eventually - ad or no ad.

KingPellinore said @ 9:28pm GMT on 21st Feb
OK...so you argue with me about advertising being propaganda by agreeing with me that at its most innocent, advertising is technically propaganda. It isn't my fault or any feminist's fault propaganda is a loaded term. It is what it is and we have a word for it. Propaganda.

Objective and result are mutually exclusive. For example, I smoke and drink to feel good, with a possible side effect of cancer. For some reason, people seem more concerned about the cancer than whether I am experiencing pleasure.

Lastly, we're coming to my entire point. Your argument is that only stupid people would resort to violence due to expectations of sex in return for gifts. I can assure you intelligent people assault their partners or coerce them into sex. I've seen it myself and I'd wager you have, too. Acting like it's not your problem because you have the decency not to hit women is part of the problem. You're supposed to not hit people and not rape them. You don't get a medal for not assaulting people. I'd advise you to spend some serious time listening to people who know what they're talking about instead of trying to argue with them.

bltrocker said @ 10:20pm GMT on 21st Feb
But I'm not going complain that you are throwing propaganda in my face if you tell me that a certain brand of bread tastes really good. My point was that the word choice serves no point but to cause a negative reaction, not that all ads are the scum of the earth.

Missed my point. I can guarantee you that if I built a machine for the express purpose of giving people cancer, it would beat the hell out of cigarettes at doing its job. You cannot equate a machine built for hate to a machine who's side effect is hate.

Did I ask for a medal? Nope. Violence toward women IS my problem, but I don't think that ads are where the problem begins.

GordonGuano said @ 4:47pm GMT on 21st Feb
Maybe that's because nobody is making that argument* here. Advertising isn't some Dr. Jekyll serum, but it does grind down self-esteem to turn people against themselves and each other. It is by no means the only factor in our society to do this, but unless you've gone full Kaczinsky, it's the most pervasive.

*I did read an article by Amanda Marcotte once where she was talking about tween girls bullying each other to establish a pecking order to get boys' attention, and she blamed that on the patriarchy. Although an extremely stupid thing to say, I don't expect somebody who publishes something daily to be consistently brilliant. And you've got to side with (the stated goal of) feminism if only because the guys calling themselves men's rights activists or the "manosphere" are monstrous douchebags, white supremacists, and have no idea what masculinity is, much less what it should be.

bltrocker said @ 8:54pm GMT on 21st Feb
People here may not have brought it up, but Kilbourne is using that type of rhetoric. That's why I posted.

KingPellinore said @ 9:12pm GMT on 21st Feb
And we've been explaining to you why that rhetoric gets used. Objectification may not be the catalyst for violence, but it is part of an environment that allows such a catalyst to take effect more easily.

bltrocker said @ 10:38pm GMT on 21st Feb
How much do ads reduce the energy of activation for the reaction? ads + fist + girlboob <-> ads + fist implanted in girlboob

KingPellinore said @ 1:23am GMT on 22nd Feb
I'm not certain, but I 'm suspecting you have a high specific gravity.

theolypse said @ 5:02am GMT on 22nd Feb
No, no, that's not what happens. Someone who probably wouldn't becomes someone who might. Someone who never would becomes someone who probably wouldn't. Someone who might just did, but baby, I'm sorry, and I just get so upset when you cry like that.

You're not going to find any knowledge in the social sciences if you go around looking for single-variable toggle switches. Christ, they don't even have those in genetics, outside of a minute fraction of loci that get all the press.

EPT said @ 8:05am GMT on 21st Feb
Oh yeah, it's also not just about the physical abuse. It's about pigeonholing people and not recognising the variety, making people feel worse for not living up to expectations they can't fill - not just in appearance, but in wants and desires too. "Keeping up with the Joneses" is another form of objectification; "to be 'successful', you need to have these attributes: car, white picket fence, wealth, hair care, big tv, 2 kids...", which doesn't recognise other ways for people to be happy.

yogi said @ 8:49am GMT on 21st Feb
I LOVE your first line--objectifying women is a step towards punching them in the face. Wow.

theolypse said @ 12:26pm GMT on 21st Feb
How about, "Objectifying women makes it easier for that other dude to justify punching his wife"?

KingPellinore said @ 12:29pm GMT on 21st Feb
It is definitely part of the problem. If you consider someone an object, it lessens them in your mind.

IBM said @ 5:00pm GMT on 21st Feb
I wonder what kind of porn this woman would allow to exist, and how long you could watch it before you started missing consensual contextualized degradation.

GordonrGuano said @ 5:33pm GMT on 21st Feb [Score:4 Funny]
Maybe she would be cool with porn if it was shown in reverse. That way, the man's penis looks like a little vacuum cleaner that he thoughtfully uses to remove Kristy Kreme glaze from the woman's face before putting on his clothes and moonwalking to clean her pool.

spite48 said @ 9:31pm GMT on 21st Feb
I have never seen an animated gif of a reversed ejaculation, and now it seems odd that I haven't.

GordonGuano said @ 10:37pm GMT on 21st Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
I first saw it while watching a VHS porno in slow rewind. It is piss-yourself funny.

IBM said @ 5:21pm GMT on 22nd Feb [Score:1 Informative]
http://reversegif.com/

+

google search

= Science!

spite48 said @ 7:14pm GMT on 22nd Feb
Thanks for that!

Cancel all my appointments, I have a new plan.