Bronwyn,

'increasing prevalence of violence in reality. ' I wonder if there realy is an increase in the prevalence of violence, or we just hear about it more with 24 hour media saturation coverage of bad news and peddling of fear by politicians.

Yvoone,
Regards the “usual suspects”. This is some type of name calling.

Feminism is normally associated with vilification of the male gender, but I believe that abuse and name calling are also highly characteristic of feminism.

So the most common characteristics of feminism would be: - ABUSE + Villification of the male gender + Name calling.

There are many objectionable ads. If you or someone else don't like the ad, then a complaint can be made to the Advertising Standards Bureau.

http://www.advertisingstandardsbureau.com.au/pages/index.asp

I have also noticed the complete lack of complaint from self-proclaimed feminists about ads that portray men as being dumb, incompetent or suspect.

I attribute this to the fact that feminists themselves so often portray men in this way.

HRS - a woman who speaks out against, say, the stoning of women in Saudi Arabia could be define themselves as a feminist.

In your blinkered view, HRS, all feminists are abusive and this woman is to be ignored.

Allow me to extend your logic further.

Some construction workers have been known to ogle women.

Tradesmen = sexist pigs.

Occasionally, a banker has been known to take money from people.

Bankers = embezzlers.

Actually, people who ride bicycles occasionally hit people with their wheels.

Cyclists = violent attackers.

Heck, I know an elderly person who swears at people now and then.

Elderly = abusive.

Can't you see how dumb this looks? And no, this isn't a feminist criticism. It's just one person speaking to someone who is irrational.

That may be abusive. It's not the work of 'feminism.' It also happens to be accurate. Here's an analogy showing why:

I could oppose rice farming as being a waste of water and use some stupid arguments like those socialist nutbags who show up at student rallies.
When I get criticised for that, it's not the fact that rice-farmers are abusive, it's the fact that using those arguments in this way would make me an idiot, and while the individual rice farmer may be abusive, to extrapolate that to all of them is foolish.

Are you beginning to see how dumb these criticisms of yours look yet?

Or are you just going to whinge and moan about how the evil feminists are abusing you, and use this as a licence to ignore the criticisms inherent in your approach?

Are you going to trawl out another request for an irrelevant statistic? Demand a quotation from a feminist praising men, but ignore the feminist posters here who do so? Cry 'abuse' when people point out that this is irrational? Try to get people to run in circles to disprove your wild theories then ignore it when they do?

"Feminism is normally associated with vilification of the male gender, but I believe that abuse and name calling are also highly characteristic of feminism."

"So the most common characteristics of feminism would be: - ABUSE + Villification of the male gender + Name calling.

__________

I have also noticed the complete lack of complaint from self-proclaimed feminists about ads that portray men as being dumb, incompetent or suspect.

I attribute this to the fact that feminists themselves so often portray men in this way.
Posted by HRS, Monday, 17 March 2008 10:23:35 AM

_________________________

You give YOUR definition of feminism in your first paragraph.

In your second you put YOUR definition as THE definition! Cheeky sod!

As for your last remarks, WELL!..now you've gone and hurt my feelings!!

Have a wee chat with Whitty; he knows that's untrue.

Alternatively: take your blinkers off and look further.

Yvonne,
Advertising isn’t art, but that doesn’t mean advertising can’t be art. The idea of art as pure and government-funded and non-commercial is recent — the old masters had patrons they were required to reproduce at flattering angles. Ok, the Tankard’s girl “in the boot” may not have loads of artistic merit. But I’d argue that the Steven Meisal shoot that she refers to is most assuredly art — and I assume the Tankard would ban that ‘n all, given her druthers.

Following this line, would she ban the various representations of the rape of Lucretia? (Or Lucretia’s subsequent suicide. Tell me Cranach the Elder’s version doesn’t glamorise the teenage girls’ mania for “cutting”. http://www.artchive.com/artchive/c/cranach/cranach_lucretia.jpg ) What about this beauty in the Ballarat Art Gallery : http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/4/43/180px-Solomon_Ajax_and_Cassandra.jpg viewed, the day I was there, by a gaggle of giggling schoolgirls? Her rape is imminent. Does it freak Melinda out that I stood in front of a painting of Leda and the Swan in the Bristol Art Gallery for half an hour because I thought it was so deliciously erotic? The beastiality, that is. What about Ophelia as Millias painted her, the ultimate pre-Raphelite goth; dark, beautiful, adorned, dead?

Art finds beauty in violence and death. Sure, it’s not healthy to go all emo and obsessive about it, but neither is it healthy to throw the telly out and become Amish.

Bronwyn: “If we don’t ban ads like this one, what’s the alternative?”

The alternative is to teach young people — effectively — that violence is fundamentally unrewarding. To encourage people to think more critically, to stop being satisfied with creative and intellectual crud. No Country for Old Men — have you seen it? — is graphically, disturbingly violent. But you can’t watch it without thinking about the nature of violence. The alternative is having faith in young people to learn when they should take violence seriously and when they can play with its aesthetics.

To ban this ad is to teach say that human endeavour should have limits around it. That men are inherently violent and women inherently stupid. That people in general are weak and not to be trusted. That *we* are smarter than *them*.

Remember, this isn't putting limits around people's behaviour. It's putting limits around what people can *see*.

Yvonne: “Censorship is not the answer. Discussions like these certainly are.”

I think so. Is there a historical precedent that proves banning a cultural product keeps us healthier and happier? I firmly believe society should be set in the direction of more freedom, not less.

Plus, as I’ve said before, banning occurs at the wrong end. If anyone looks at that ad and thinks, “Well, I guess that it’s ok to lock a woman up in a boot,” then the last thing you get to blame is the ad itself — the problem happened way before the ad came along.

Also, like Whitty, I am not convinced violence has got more prevelent. We can get caught up in statistics here, of course.

Yvonne, I’m GenX — the Twin Peaks generation: does anyone remember Laura Palmer’s corpse: naked, beautiful, and “wrapped in plastic”? — probably somewhere between your kids and you. Whereas in the Duchamp era art stretched to fit urinals, and in Warhol’s 70s it stretched to fit soup cans and celebrity, my era saw art stretch to fit comic books and advertising. Film-makers often begin in advertising. Painters work as designers to make money. Fashion photographers mix commercial and editorial work. Fashion designers make no money from couture — that’s their art — but pots of it from perfume and fashion lines.

PS. Another artistic ad. Tell me this isn’t beautiful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRFfJJjLpqw

PPS. By the way, the article that James and I were discussing is here:http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-flipside-of-fantasy-a-male-perspective/2008/03/15/1205472160379.htm

PPPS. Whitty, Apologies for misrepresentation. I stand corrected.