viz. - Feministing

You've never seen sports bras like these.

erinhurt — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 03:16:03 +0000

I ran across this via Feministing.com, and thought these almost-ads needed to be on the website. The backstory for these ads is that an ad agency pitched them to a running company, which passed on them. They are advertising sports bras, supposedly in a humorous way. They seem menacing to me:

See the other two ads after the jump:

Here are the others:

For me, the blood on these women's faces has overtones of violence, especially domestic violence. Furthermore, I find it hard to imagine that an advertising agency wouldn't be aware of these connotations.

This is what a feminist looks like

erinhurt — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:54:46 +0000

On Feministing the bloggers who write for the site have started vlogging (video blogging). These first vlogs feature several of the website's various writers explaining how they came to be involved with the site.

Watching these vlogs, what immediately came to mind for me was the difference between how I perceived these bloggers' written commentary and how I perceived the same bloggers in their videos. The very medium of the video blog seems to add a kind of uncertainty to what one is saying, especially when what's being said is done so informally. While my reaction to the vlogs doesn't necessarily affect how I view the website's written commentary, these video blogs do seem to undermine the assertiveness and confidence that characterizes the writing found on the website. This is not to knock the medium of the vlog - rather, I am interested in how those viewers and/or readers will react who are ambivalent to the site's core values (as opposed to those who come to the site already in agreement with its values). What kind of effect will this have?

Skin = Liberation?

erinhurt — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:36:37 +0000

Recently on Muslim Media Watch , a blog post discussed what the author termed "Veil Fetish Art" (full disclosure: I found a link to this article while I was reading Feministing.com ).

The author writes: "I’ll term it 'veil fetish art,' because every featured woman has most or all of her face and her hair covered. Although the woman herself is the main focus, the veil acts as a sexual catalyst: it brands the woman as forbidden, despite the fact that you may be able to see most of her naked body. So even though she’s exposed, the veil reminds you that she’s “forbidden fruit,” and pushes the viewer to want her even more. [...] The type of liberation these images imply is a sexual one: erotic poses and come-hither eyes imply that this veiled woman just wants the freedom to be the dirty, dirty girl that she is. This simultaneously reinforces Orientalist ideas that Muslim women are oppressed (sexually as well as socially or religiously) and hypersexual. It also supports the idea that covering oneself is oppressive, and that the only way to be a liberated woman is to show some skin."

For myself, this image has a distinctly American bent to it (the Marilyn Monroe-esque pose over the grate of blowing air?). Which makes me wonder, does the author envision the audience to be an American one? This makes sense in light of the painting's "skin equals liberation" move, which is in opposition to some Muslim feminists' portrayal of the veil as a means of freedom from sexual objectification.