On “Realism” vs. “Idealism”

Before the Iraq War started, I was at a protest, and a man on the street started yelling at us, totally enraged. I walked up to him and asked, “Why are you so angry?” He was a little shocked that I would approach him calmly instead of yelling back, but he answered that he had been in New York when 9/11 went down. I told him that I was in the city on 9/11 too, and he was even more taken aback. He paused for a second, and then, gently now, told me that I was naive. I was too young to understand. I needed to be “realistic.” There would always be war.

It’s an argument I’ve heard all my life, from all kinds of people, whenever I express disagreement with the status quo. It seems that according to many people, making no effort to reduce the suffering in the world is what constitutes “realism.”

And it’s such a load of bullshit.

The claim that people trying to change something are lacking a sense of “realism” is nothing more than an attempt to shut them down without substantively engaging their arguments, or the changes they are suggesting.

The world changes. People change it. Slavery isn’t legal anymore. There is such a thing as a weekend. I can own property and vote. People fought and bled and died for these things, and it is spitting on the graves of our ancestors and spitting in the faces of our elders to claim that nothing ever changes.

Just as saying that human nature is all evil and dark gives people a handy excuse to act like assholes, saying that change is impossible lets people who are actually being lazy and uncaring pretend that their motivation for apathy is a noble understanding of the “real” truth.

No. If you are not doing something to make the world better, it is not because you’re smarter and more perceptive than all of us poor deluded souls trying to make a difference. It’s because you have chosen not to, despite the fact that things do change. You are responsible for your choice. Do not disown it.

I’ve heard many a hipster tell me that they don’t get involved in anything other than self-indulgent performance art (or building robots, or kickball, or whatever) because signing a petition isn’t going to solve the problem with the environment anyway. And it’s not like anything they do is going to end racism in our lifetimes, anyway. And voting doesn’t matter, anyway.

In other words, if they can’t find one activity that will instantly and completely rid the world of every single bad thing ever, it makes much more sense to spend all of their time on self-involved bullshit.

This lovely little bit of illogic is what writer Paul Loeb has dubbed the “perfect standard,” a common cause of paralysis for people who would otherwise try to improve things in some way. The perfect standard dictates that unless social action is determined to be both lacking in any flaws and perfectly effective in solving the world’s problems, it isn’t worth doing.

So, for example, ANY ATTEMPT TO CHANGE ANYTHING, EVER, is a total waste of time.

The perfect standard’s apathy has a counterpart in an unwillingness to limit activities that harm others, for example by recycling or boycotting businesses known to be socially irresponsible. People will argue that they shouldn’t bother with those things, since harming others is inevitable. I call this the “we might as well eat some babies” approach to life. In other words, if we can’t live without doing ANY harm, we should cause MAXIMUM harm.

Christ on a cracker. Think about the implications of that approach to ethics for two seconds. It makes no more sense than eating delicious babies.

I’m not saying that it’s wrong to have fun. Have fun! Fun is good! And I do understand that trying to make our little corner of the world better can be exhausting and heartbreaking, and it’s scary to take the risk and believe that you have the power to change things. Because then if you try and you fail… Well, that sucks. But thinking that you have to succeed totally and immediately is just the perfect standard doing its work. The kind of changes progressive people believe in are not going to happen all at once, and they often require a lot of “failed” attempts, which teach the next wave of activists what not to do. You do your best. You let it go. Sometimes the victory is won years after your death. You may never see the results of what you do. But someone, someday is going to be very grateful that you did that work.

And that’s just realistic.

Blog Review: Shakesville

Shakesville is the biggest of the feminist blogs. It’s kind of the Daily Kos of the feminist blogosphere (If the Daily Kos weren’t full of sanctimonious dudebros who can’t grasp the concept of identity-based oppression).

Shakesville, which started out as the individual blog of Melissa McEwan but has expanded to include a whole posse of writers, has somehow managed to avoid any major feminist deathmatches in its five years of existence. Sure, there are disagreements and whatnot, but no explosions that leave feminist intestines strewn about the blogosphere. If you know anything about feminists and/or bloggers, you know that this is one hell of an achievement.

Part of the reason for Shakesville’s success in this department is a heavy comment moderation hand and a clear and consistently articulated commitment to not having any oppressive bullshit in that space. I like being able to visit the space trusting that if someone says something hurtful, it’ll be taken seriously and dealt with. And over time, a lot of people have found a community at Shakesville because of that same trust.

The Shakesville crew also shows a general lack of interest in tearing down those who disagree with them. To be sure, if someone goes into that space throwing around slurs or oppressive tropes, they’ll get their ass handed to them. But debate between people with a shared commitment to ending oppression is just fine. Case in point: even though Melissa supported Clinton during the 2008 primaries, unlike some others on both sides, she maintained respect for those who disagreed with her. She never said that Obama supporters were brainwashed robots, or started in with the Oppression Olympics. As an Obama supporter, I still felt comfortable checking out Shakesville. There is room for respectful disagreement there.

As for content, Shakesville is basically an all-purpose progressive website that includes feminism in its vision of progressivism (unlike sites like Kos, HuffPo, TPM, etc., where so-called “women’s issues” are relegated to the occasional brief mention). General news and politics are discussed, along with commentary on various expressions of misogyny, racism, heterosexism, ableism, and fat hate. Shakesville also facilitates a community of commenters with regular open threads (in fact, the community has developed to the point where it has a culture all its own), and bubble gum intertubes entertainment like random pictures of cute cats grace the page daily.

Shakesville has an excellent set of 101 posts, which answer common annoying anti-feminist memes. I regularly direct people to it, and it saves me hours of tedium.

Since Shakesville is updated quite regularly, it’s my go-to website for procrastination and relief from work-related boredom. Overall, I highly recommend checking it out!

A few Shakesville classics:
Feminism 101: “Feminists Look for Stuff to Get Mad About”
Feminism 101: “Sexism is a Matter of Opinion”
The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck

Feminism and Loneliness

I recently went through a fairly shitty breakup–a breakup that largely happened because I am a feminist and my boyfriend was not. He said he was down with the theories behind feminism, sure. But when he was actually asked to live it? Well, let’s just say he was not down with that.

The whole thing was incredibly heartbreaking for me, because I really dug the guy. But I don’t have it in me to be a doormat, and he didn’t have it in him to stop treating me like one, so I left.

It’s a painful reality that feminists don’t often talk about, because it plays into stereotypes of feminism ruining relationships (the opposite has actually been well-documented). But being a feminist can be very, very lonely.

It’s lonely because most people do not identify as feminist, and we see the world in an entirely different way than most other people do. It’s also lonely because it sometimes literally means that we have to be alone–forgoing certain friendships and relationships. In my case, the choice was between the aching lonely of being with someone who refused to understand me because understanding me would have meant confronting his privilege, and the honest loneliness of ending things. I’d rather be honest.

There are undeniable benefits associated with living up to the expectations laid out for us as women. If we are pretty and docile and nurturing and play the role we’ve been given, it just gets easier to make it through a million different situations.  If we’re straight, many men will want to build romantic relationships with us, and nearly every social situation gets easier. If we won’t do all that, there’s a much smaller pool of friends and partners out there (On the other hand, the people who like you docile are usually kind of terrible to be around, so pick your poison: bad company or no company?)

Things always get better, and I’m lucky enough to have a really strong community of feminist friends.  But sometimes being honest about how hard it is to take the road less traveled is important.

 

No Pubic Option

Via: [A] Funny Feminist

Blog Review: Flip Flopping Joy

Brownfemipower, the force behind Flip Flopping Joy, is, quite simply, totally fuckin’ rad.

Jess, another blogger who sometimes posts there, is also totally fuckin’ rad.

Together, they have created a blog that is… totally fuckin’ rad.

Of all of the many bloggers I can think of, brownfemipower and Jess probably have the most thorough and integrated understanding of intersectionality that I’ve seen. Much better than mine! They write with an understanding not only of the complex connections between oppressions and the ways that those with different identities experience oppressions differently, but with the ways our day-to-day lives are deeply influenced by systemic oppression, and the revolutionary nature of things like healing, community building, and art.

They’re also both real live activists who do real live stuff that helps real live people. I always trust the liberation theory developed by such people about 250% more than I do the stuff done by academics or armchair activists.

Flip Flopping Joy is a daily read for me, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to you, too.

A few of my favorite FFJ posts:
Messy but Necessary
I Am Learning To Respect
“Radical Love”: What Is That?

Blog Review: The Curvature

I am consistently impressed by the writing of Cara at The Curvature (Cara also writes for Feministe—one of the “big blogs” of feminism). Her writing is clear, her arguments are strong, and she frequently catches important news stories that go ignored by commentators in the mainstream media.

The Curvature usually focuses on current events and feminist news, with an occasional indulgence of Cara’s obsession with The Beatles. Cara is a particularly strong advocate on issues of sexual violence, and her posts on the topic are usually excellent.

Recently, Cara and some other feminist bloggers were called out on work that marginalized transgendered people. In my opinion, Cara responded well. She addressed the problem without defensiveness, and I believe that her actions on the follow up have shown a real commitment to challenge her own privilege as a cis woman. Of course, everyone will need to decide for themselves how they feel about all this. For my part, I believe that she is making an honest and demonstrable effort to do better.

Some good posts from The Curvature:
What Does It Take?
Cis Supremacy: Feminism and Women’s Shelters
A Quick Note on Misogynistic Beauty Standards

Hysteria

The etymology of the word “hysteria” can tell you quite a bit.

Originally a term used by the Greeks, hysteria (from the root “hyster,” meaning “womb”) was thought to be a condition especially likely to affect women who were independent of male control, like nuns and widows—though it could potentially strike any woman. According to the Greeks, Hysteria was caused when a woman’s uterus wandered through her body, pushing on her other organs and causing irrational behavior. The cure was pregnancy, which would weigh the uterus down and keep it in its place.

Huh.

The term resurfaced as a diagnosis in Victorian times, again as an affliction affecting only women. In this case, its cause was considered to be sexual deprivation.

Freud other early psychoanalytic theorists later reclassified hysteria as neurosis, again impacting women, again often having a lot to do with their sexual behavior.

HUH.

These days, it’s not uncommon to hear the word hysteria used to describe someone who is being irrational and unreasonable. You may have noticed that it is more commonly used to describe a woman or women.

In particular, it is often used to describe people, usually women people, who are concerned about sexual violence.

HUH.

It is very common for anti-feminist people to call feminists hysterical. Other favored terms include: “irrational,” “unreasonable,” and “oversensitive.”

Would you like to know why I think this is the case?

Here’s why: there is a longstanding cultural tradition of separating  “reason” from “emotion,” and contending that they are vastly different and entirely separable.  The tradition goes on to value reason over emotion.  This tradition contends that emotion makes one unable to consider issues “rationally,” but that some very special individuals are capable of considering issues “objectively” and without emotion.  These individuals are “rational.” Other individuals, who are influenced by their emotions, do not have thoughts worthy of consideration.  They are “emotional,” and not as good.  One cannot be “emotional” and “rational” at the same time, you see.

What’s kind of interesting about this whole fallacy wherein an objective viewpoint supposedly exists and individuals cannot be emotional and rational at the same time is that there are also some long-standing cultural stereotypes about which types of people are most able to be rational.  As it turns out, straight white men are very rational types.  Men of color aren’t as rational, because they tend to be very angry for no good reason.  Queer men aren’t as rational, because they’re kind of like ladies.  Women are the least rational of all, because their uteri are floating around making them crazy.  Science!

So you see, people who really buy into this tend to think that they themselves are rational.  They also tend to think that bad people who disagree with them are emotional and not rational.  And that ladypeople are inevitably emotional and therefore irrational.  So ladypeople who disagree with these upstanding rational individuals are the most emotional of all, so emotional, in fact, that they have crossed over into hysteria.

It’s a very rational argument, if you can think about it objectively.

My Seething Rage

My mother used to worry a lot that I’d get pushed around by other kids when I was in grade school, because I’ve always been sort of a gentle soul. When my parents tried to get me to play little league, I picked flowers in the outfield. My high school boyfriend used to affably joke that I would grow up to “save all the puppies and kittens.” I help caterpillars across the street so they don’t get run over.

In short, I’m a huge wuss.

I honestly don’t spend a lot of time being angry. While I have sympathy for activists who think differently about anger, I tend to side with Gandhi on the whole “getting angry at your oppressor only destroys you” thing. When it comes to social justice issues, it’s basically my softie nature, not my anger, that keeps me going. I really love people a lot, and I want them to be happy. That’s why I do this feminism thing.

In fact, feminism has made me a lot less angry at men than many nonfeminist women I know, because it offers an explanation for hurtful patriarchal behaviors that doesn’t assume that men are just acting that way because they’re biologically programmed to be nasty and inconsiderate (and in fact, it has been shown that feminists are less hostile to men than nonfeminists).

Like most feminists, however, I have definitely been accused of being a feminist because I’m “angry.”

I have a few problems with this.

First, it’s an ad hominem attack. Even if I were absolutely full of anger, it would not invalidate my views. Dismissing what I have to say by claiming that I’m experiencing an emotion simply does not follow, logically.

Second, it is perfectly reasonable to be angry about things like sexual assault, partner violence, forced sterilization, forced birth, the wage gap, a lack of decent childcare, hateful media representations of women, getting thrown out of restaurants for breastfeeding, street harassment, the way guys always interrupt women but not other men, and the existence of the bromance as a film genre. There is no reason not to be angry about these things. In fact, many activists feel that anger is a positive motivating force for them, and there once was a very famous feminist who outlined exactly why we should be angry about injustice. I think maybe she had a point!

Finally, the claim that a woman is angry, stated as if it is an accusation, is sexist on its face. It’s a way of attempting to silence her by stating that she is not living up to patriarchal standards of behavior for women in this culture. Studies have documented that women are punished harshly for showing anger. From a very young age, we are expected to be smiley lovey dovey nurturing sugar and spice. NOT angry. Angry women are scary!

This, not incidentally, is one way the culture makes sure women put up with a lot more shit than they should. The word “angry” is thrown around any time a woman simply stands up for herself, as a way of shutting her down.

Ani DiFranco, a musician who was the Bob Dylan of my generation in terms of her lyrical skill, but never got anywhere near the kind of recognition he did for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on but certainly has nothing to do with the fact that she’s a ladyperson, once wrote the following lines—probably very familiar to feminist readers:

I am not an angry girl
But it seems like I’ve got everyone fooled
Every time I say something they find hard to hear
They chalk it up to my anger and never to their own fear
Imagine you’re a girl
Just trying to finally come clean
Knowing full well they’d prefer you were dirty
And smiling

What Ms. DiFranco is pointing to is the reasonableness of a woman being unhappy that she is treated as subordinate to men in our culture, the fact that women who point out this injustice are often dismissed as unreasonable when it’s really those who hold misogynistic views who should be questioned, and the fact that rejecting patriarchy (angrily or not) is actually a more psychologically healthy response than sucking it up and going along.

Ugh. She is just so angry!

I Cannot Take A Joke! It Is Because I Lack a Sense of Humor!

I’m not the funniest person in the world. I’m a little too reserved to be truly hilarious. But I have my moments. I have, at times, been known to successfully engage others in humorous banter. I also smile and laugh quite a bit, compared to your average person. I’d say that I find a lot of things pretty funny. I laugh at most jokes, and I laugh at life.

Why, then, is it so commonly the case that I am accused of having no sense of humor?

Perhaps we can find a clue in the context. You see, it is usually in a very specific context that I am accused of this particular character flaw.

It is when I don’t find something funny because I think it is sexist.

What, exactly, is going on when people accuse feminists of having no sense of humor? It’s a claim that’s clearly factually incorrect. A visit to one of the big feminist blogs on any given day will usually pop up quite a few jokes. And my feminist friends and I joke around all the time. I have this one friend who does the most fantastic white-dude-with-gravely-voice-singing-about-how-hard-life-is impression. You should see it!

Of course, these jokes might not be funny to someone who is not feminist, but…

Wait! I think I’ve hit on something!

It would seem that perhaps an individual’s worldview and culture has an impact on what that person finds funny! Almost as if our sense of humor is an extension of our perspective on things like how we think people should act, what behaviors we find surprising and incongruous (funny), and who is worthy of ridicule.

For instance, have you ever noticed how some people find it funny to ridicule the willful behavior of people who are in positions of power, while others prefer to ridicule the intrinsic nature of people who are in positions of subordination? I’m sure such preferences have little meaning and should be ignored, but I can’t help feeling that the way advocates for the disempowered are so often accused of lacking a sense of humor may have something to do with this fact.

See, I have this wacky, half-baked idea that humor is, as much as anything, an expression of our political views and identities. For example, if someone doesn’t think rape is a big deal, they will probably find rape jokes quite funny. If someone thinks rape is a horrific and all-too-common experience, the mere thought of which sends shivers down their spine and makes them feel vaguely nauseous, they will be less likely to find rape jokes funny.

My wacky theory extends even further: I believe that humor is an extraordinarily common method of maintaining oppressive structures. What could possibly be more effective at silencing someone, at making them an outsider, at establishing them as inferior, than ridicule? Think of a few of the times in your life when you felt most embarrassed and ashamed. How many of them included people laughing at you? Most? All?

We all want to fit in and be respected. There are many situations where ridicule controls people far more effectively than an overt threat of violence ever could.

My theory, which is in no way related to actual experience, also postulates that humor can be amazingly effective at begging the question* of whether oppressive structures/beliefs make sense. For example, let’s consider this enjoyable piece by Bill Maher, a man who I’ve lovingly come to consider the most pathologically misogynist dude in all of comedy, and maybe all the world:

Is it actually true that women talk more than men? Is it bad to talk? Is it good to want everyone to “shut the hell up?” Is it true that women ask their male partners to check in more than men ask their female partners to do so? Is it true that a relationship where people check in with each other regularly is problematic? Does the phrase “pussywhipped” represent an actual undesirable condition, or is it a way of shaming men who respect their female partners into ignoring the desires of their partner and doing what other men want them to do instead? Bill Maher doesn’t care! Men are good! Women are annoying! Yay, comedy!

According to the logic of my wild-eyed speculation, it seems that actually, resisting dominant ideas about what is considered funny and creating a counternarrative about such things would be an extremely important aspect of building effective liberation movements for oppressed groups.

It would also seem that silencing this counternarrative would be an essential task for those invested in maintaining existing structures of domination.

Oh, there I go again. Taking everything so seriously!

*A very boring point: I know a lot of people misuse the phrase “begging a question.” This may lead some readers to be confused when they read this sentence. Here’s an explanation of the correct usage.

Adventures in Advertising

If there’s one cultural force that has the strongest effect on our ideas of what is normal and acceptable, I’d say that advertising is pretty much it. The lovely and talented Jean Kilborne has been talking about this for many years now:

She is so smart.

So, what with advertising being one of the major ways our culture is created and replicated, it would seem that some analysis of common messages in advertising makes sense, if, you know, we want to have some understanding of the world around us.

Somehow, though, many people seem steadfastly against any sort of media analysis, and argue in particular against analysis of advertising. Most commonly, they will argue one of four points:

1) Advertising does not affect behavior, or its impact is trivial.

2) There is no particular power structure being created or reinforced by advertising—it is simply a value neutral attempt to sell products by any means necessary.

3) Social context is irrelevant to understanding the meaning and impact of a given advertisement.

4) Any objection an oppressed individual has to an advertisement on the grounds that it reinforces their oppression is evidence of a psychological or psychiatric problem on the part of that individual.

Of course, these objections are not expressed in precisely these words. They’ll sound more like this:

1) “I don’t pay attention to advertising.” See, also: “Are you saying that advertisements cause [social problem x]? That’s ridiculous!”

2) “What do you expect? Sex sells.” See, also: “White people/straight people buy more stuff, so advertising is naturally aimed at them.”

3) “You’re making a big deal out of nothing. It’s just a commercial.”

4) “You’re just jealous because that model is prettier than you.” See, also: “You see oppression everywhere. Why are you so [insert character flaw here]?”

Alright then. Let’s knock ’em down one at a time.

1) Advertising does not affect behavior.

I hear this argument, and the extreme force required to maintain such a state of denial—which pulsates from any individual who can make this statement with a straight face—threatens to make my brain ooze out of my ears.

Are. you. fucking. kidding?

Really? REALLY?

Advertising does not affect attitudes and behavior?

Let us contemplate this sentiment.

The idea that advertising, a medium specifically designed to affect attitudes and behavior, and which continues to exist only because it effectively affects attitudes and behavior, is irrelevant to our, uh… attitudes and behavior, is not just naive and ridiculous. It’s fuckin’ dangerous. If we have no analysis of how we are being manipulated by advertising, we are all the more easily manipulated… Into buying jeans or carbonated sugar water, maybe, but also buying elected officials, government policies, jingoism, wars…

A population with no ability to know propaganda when they see it is a population just waiting for a beloved daddy dictator to sweep away their worries.

Advertising affects how we think and what we do. It does this even if we are the most socially aware, thoughtful people in the world. I can pull all kinds of critical theory out of my butt when I look at an American Apparel ad, and on a conscious level, I can tear it apart. But I’ve been socialized into this culture, with all its fucked up beauty standards and its reinforcement of the worthlessness of women who are not appealing to the male gaze. So when I look at an American Apparel ad, on a visceral level I will be reminded that I am not good enough. Will never be good enough. I am completely conscious of the fact that this manipulation is happening, but that doesn’t mean the manipulation doesn’t work. Because I’m conscious of what is happening, I won’t buy American Apparel products. But what I will buy, however much I wish I could avoid it, is a little bit of the sense of worthlessness they are selling. Worthlessness is always the first thing an advertisement based on oppression sells you. Then they tell you that you need to buy the product to fix the worthlessness. You can decolonize your mind to the point where you see the manipulation for what it is and reject it, but there is no escaping the fact that some manipulation will occur, because that is what an advertisement is designed to do.

2) There is no particular power structure being created or reinforced by advertising.

Okay, first? There is always a power structure being created and reinforced. Humans are social animals. Social animals create power structures to allow them to cooperate. The power structures may be democratic or authoritarian, cooperative or coercive, just or unjust, but they have to be there. Otherwise, we would be completely unable to interact with each other. I am deeply suspicious of anyone who attempts to obscure the workings of power in any aspect of life. Power is there in our private relationships, in the workplace, in political life… you name it. Those who try to hide that fact, or who avoid addressing it, are usually the people who are unfairly benefiting from the current power structure, and they’re usually trying to screw someone else over. Creating transparent, fair power structures takes lots of very conscious work. It’s not something that happens by itself, and it definitely doesn’t happen by ignoring the fact that power exists.

Second, advertising absolutely works to create and reinforce white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Take, for example, the very common depiction of women of color as sexy sexy animals:

What does an image like this inspire in us? First, I would say it asks us to look at Ciara. The fact that she is not looking back at us tells us, through visual language, that it is okay to look at and judge her. I’d go further and say that, through the vulnerable, presentational visual language of her pose, the ad asks us to look at her as a desirable sexual object. So essentially, the ad tells us to look at Ciara through the eyes of a man who wants to have sex with Ciara, regardless of our actual identity. Her pose emphasizes her availability for penetration, which makes clear that we, as the viewer, should identify with a male gaze, not a homosexual female gaze. The fact that she doesn’t look back at us inspires us to think only of our own judgment of and reaction to her, and asks us to avoid thinking of, for example, Ciara’s own desires. Or hopes, fears, likes, dislikes… In short, her humanity.

The image also plays into a very, very old storyline in our culture: that of people of color (and women) as animals. This was the justification for slavery and Jim Crow laws. Eugenicists tried to prove white superiority by claiming that people of color were closer to monkeys than white people.

Just ask me what I think of the Broadway version of the Lion King. I have things to say, I tell you.

The concept of women of color as animalistic “exotic beauties,” rather than “regular” (read: white) women, which is what such representations play to, implies that women of color are not just normal people. Instead, their racial and ethnic identity is primary, while any of that pesky individual humanity of theirs is secondary or irrelevant. It also implies that their beauty is a special treat, not the real ideal. Not the kind of beauty we usually value. Not the kind of beauty we really value. White beauty.

It’s worth noting that in a culture where whether a woman is valued by others is completely tied up in how attractive she is considered by conventional standards, being labeled less attractive has important consequences for women. For their personal lives. For how they are treated, in everything from school to employment to interpersonal relationships. For their sense of self-worth.

And, most painfully: for whether they find love, which I’d say is about as important as consequences get.

So the ad eroticizes female vulnerability and male domination, encourages us to identify with a straight white male view of the world as the “objective” and “normal” way of seeing, plays into racist ideas of women of color as incomplete humans, reinforces unrealistic and racist beauty standards, and, it must be said, has Ciara in a cage.

I would say that such an ad reinforces white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

Now, to address objection #3 (Social context is irrelevant to understanding the meaning and impact of a given advertisement), that wouldn’t matter so much if this was the only ad of its kind. But if we get the same messages over and over again, we might start to believe them. We might even absorb them so deeply that we wouldn’t notice them. Like fish with water. That sort of thing.

Enough said.

4) Any objection an oppressed individual has to an advertisement on the grounds that it reinforces their oppression is evidence of a psychological or psychiatric problem on the part of that individual.

The technique of silencing someone’s opinions by stating that they come out of some sort of character flaw or lack on the part of that individual is, above all, a completely shady rhetorical trick. No matter what you’re disagreeing about, ad hominem attacks should not fly. They don’t address the issue being raised, they reflect an unwillingness to engage in honest debate, and beyond that, they’re just plain mean-spirited.

Besides, oppression pretty much relies on the ability and willingness of those in positions of privilege to deny the value of oppressed people. In oppressive systems, there will always be culturally sanctioned ways of doing this. For example, the belief that women should not hold positions of power is often justified with the claim that we are “too emotional” and “irrational.” So what will the ready-made claim be when some of us start saying that maybe men don’t actually deserve to hold every position of power in the world, and that maybe we should be allowed to have some power too?

Why, we’re being irrational, of course!

I’ve been around the feminist block a few times, and I’ve been called a lot of names for challenging people’s misogyny. I’ve been told that I’m dogmatic, self-righteous, judgmental, irrational, hysterical, narcissistic, humorless, too young to understand, too angry, too idealistic, too pessimistic, just struggling with my own insecurity… Blah fucking blah.

Sometimes, I’m all of those things. So what? That doesn’t make anything I have to say untrue or irrelevant. Show me evidence that advertising does not create and reinforce oppression and I’ll listen. Give me a load of psychobabble about what’s wrong with me and I see no reason to engage in discussion.

I’ll leave you with a Diesel Ad that I’m sure will have no impact of any sort, on anyone, via Racialicious:

I think we’re done here.