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The Forum > Article Comments > Give this ad the boot > Comments

Give this ad the boot : Comments

By Melinda Tankard Reist, published 14/3/2008

One women's magazine paid its respects to women on International Women's Day with a fashion ad of murdered woman.

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Ginz,
I wouldn’t want to call myself an “ist”, or say that I belong to an “ism” because inevitably such people start to regard themselves as being elitist, or more equal than anyone else.

Your belief that you can’t be cross examined or asked a question is very much in the area of elitism, and I can understand why you would be attracted to an “ism” such as feminism.

Certainly a public boycott of “Harper's Bazaar” magazine can be done, similar to the public boycott of “Sassy” magazine in the US. At the time this magazine was being run by the Australian feminist Dr Anne Summers, and it is ironic that due to the outrage over the content in this feminist magazine, the advertisers finally withdrew their advertising and the magazine had to shutdown.

Certainly there should also be a boycott of International Women’s Day, until schools and other organizations start to celebrate International Men’s Day as well.

We don’t want Australia becoming feminist, elitist, discriminatory and gender prejudiced.
Posted by HRS, Saturday, 15 March 2008 9:58:35 AM
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The beauty industry, as an organism, works by convincing women that they’re unattractive, but could be real babes in they’d just apply this cream, or shoe, or dye, or wax. If the product had real potency, of course, the whole house of mirrors would tumble down. ("Hey, my face cream *really did* make me look 25! Guess I don’t need any more.”) Advertisers sell the promise of beauty — but not the actuality. From cradle to grave, women are bombarded by the message that they’re not *quite* hot enough.

Meanwhile, human have always and will always fetishise female beauty. The adornment of women is deeply rooted in nature and in society. And, let’s face it, five percent of women in the world are more beautiful than the rest of us. (What was Marilyn Monroe but our generation’s Helen of Troy — a face powerful men fought over, that changed history?)

Rather than let this depress us, or allow corporations to exploit us, why can’t beauty and fashion inspire us? When we harness fashion well, it is inventive, creative, fun, theatrical, liberating. (Like Steven Meisal’s amazing Vogue Italia spread.) And why we can’t we be more alive to different types of everyday beauty — value the big noses and strong chins and rotund arses we see around us?

If we keep working to remould the way we think about beauty, we won’t have to ban anything. Banning stuff we don’t like is a supremely ineffective way of moulding culture. For a start, it attempts to fix the problem at the wrong end — it does nothing to change the societal circumstances that created a market for the offending product. Secondly, it’s paternalistic and patronising. Thirdly, we don’t all agree — some see a cruxifix made of urine as art, others as offensive; your porn is my life drawing class; etc etc. Fourthly, draws attention to the product it seeks to remove from view (David Irving’s philosophies, for example — or the ad in question, come to think of it).

...cont if I can
Posted by Vanilla, Saturday, 15 March 2008 12:54:19 PM
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I think this type of ad (which is itself shown in the article - any thoughts about that, Melinda?) perpetuates the myth that violence against women is OK. It also shows how far women have to go in our society to become equal on their terms.

Unfortunately it highlights the failure of the women's liberation movement (WLM) to push on for liberation. That is not its fault but a reflection of the conservatism gripping society from the 80s and on and the fact that the WLM has now become the women's movement. The main beneficiaries of the Women's Movement are or will be well paid upper middle class and ruling class women.

Lower paid women will continue to be lower paid women (and sexist ads like this one will continue to published) until working women (and men) enter onto the battle field of history,as they did for example on March 8 in 1917 in Russia, sparking the February Revolution. (That event was the reason IWD is celebrated on 8 March, I believe.)

Even a well organised strike movement for better wages and maternity leave and female friendly workplaces and elected bosses would go some way to righting the ongoing and systemic discrimination and violence against women.

Two pamphlets by socialists might be worth a read for those wanting to understand where the seeds of violence in our present society come from. They are:

Sandra Bloodworth "Rape, Sexual Violence and Capitalism"

Sheila McGregor "Rape, pornography and capitalism".
Posted by Passy, Saturday, 15 March 2008 2:01:57 PM
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Well said Romany, Vanilla.

Honestly, there are better things to get worked up over.

I note HRS continues to base his main criticisms upon what isn't in articles, rather than what is, and has a very hard time sticking to specific issues when the opportunity to bash feminism overall comes-a-knocking.

Shame really. There's plenty of decent reasons to criticise this piece.

Observe this short circuit - it's like watching an wind-up car repeatedly bump into a wall:

HRS says that no feminists are willing to criticise violence against women - Posters here, who identify as feminist, say that they do oppose violence against men. Heck, I'll do it right now.

I oppose violence against men HRS, and though I'm not particularly invested in the feminist cause, the lack of reason in your posts has made me decide that yes, feminism is still necessary in this day in age.

Now observe the following contortions of logic, as he's presented with this paradox:

1) HRS believes feminists have nothing worthwhile to say.
2) A feminist just said that they believe violence against men is wrong.

I'm betting he'll adopt a 'poor me, I'm such a victim, feminists are so mean to me' approach in order to justify his hatred of women, which he disguises as a hatred of feminism.

I'm also guessing he'll interpret this post as being an attack fuelled by feminism, rather than people thinking his posts lack logic.

Or perhaps, he'll ask for other information so he can discard what's in front of him.

I'm aware I'm just stoking his apparent issues, but it really does amaze me that such a dogmatic position that flies in the face of logic, can be sustained without the typical religious methods.

With religious fundamentalists, you've got no hope of dissuading them, because they fall back on unanswerable questions.
HRS doesn't have that excuse. If we could make him see the illogic of believing every single feminist is bad, we'd have taken the first step toward being able to reason with fundamentalists of other stripes... well, in an ideal world, anyway :).
Posted by TurnRightThenLeft, Saturday, 15 March 2008 2:35:17 PM
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Vanilla, Passy
I once worked in a factory and did some work with the safety department. We had continuous problems trying to convince various female employess that they should wear safety shoes and safety glasses.

We had to search through the market to try and find a selection of safety shoes and safety glasses that they thought were fashionable, and would wear.

So much for men wanting to carry out violence on women.

I think the ad is in very poor taste, but no man is forcing a woman to read or buy Harper's Bazaar.

Boycott the magazine, like what was done to "Sassy" magazine, run by the Australian feminist Dr Ann Summers.
Posted by HRS, Saturday, 15 March 2008 2:38:03 PM
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cont...

Melinda Tankard Reist may describe herself as a feminist, but I believe she is more motivated by her pro-life, right-wing Christianity — and her organisation’s half-arsed “girl-power” message is a convenient way to communicate those values to young girls. (Particularly ones with unwanted pregnancies.)

To have this ad removed from circulation, as Melinda did, teaches girls nothing about how to reconcile their own apparently imperfect looks against the images culture bombards them with. Or helps them critically analyse how advertising works. Or (and I know I’m on controversial ground here) that there are creative links between sex and death and art that we would be better to examine than ignore.

She gave them a fish. She didn’t teach them to fish. That’s why her article has gotten me so cross.

Romany: “I wish there was some little flag one....”
As do I. I hate conversations where the point is not is not to tease out the issues, or to learn, but to compete and combat, to blame, to flatter oneself and to willfully misunderstand. How can you be free to explore if your every utterance is tortured and pronounced “sexist” and if the reaction to every critique is “oh, so you’re blaming men now, huh!”

The fact is I dunno what I think half the time. I’m trying to work it out. Do I really believe what I just said? I’m not sure — maybe I’m confused because of my distaste for the Tankard Reist. It was interesting what you said about anthropology in the other thread. Maybe I’m wrong about the inevitability of humanity’s obsession with female beauty. Am I? I am so happy to be challenged, but not for my statements or questions to be converted into positions I simply don’t hold.

The usual suspects actually resemble super-rad fems of the Dworkin era. They both believe life is really tough for [insert relevant group] and much easier for [you].

It’s irrelevant, but if you’ve got time, check out some good advertising: http://dothetest.co.uk/
Posted by Vanilla, Saturday, 15 March 2008 2:38:37 PM
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