Paradigm Shift

Gender inequality in advertising is certainly not a new topic. As an instructor, part of my job is to make sure that my students leave my classroom as better analytical thinkers; one way we do this is through studying the advertisements that they see everyday. My students seem receptive to discussing the damaging way in which media represents a “norm” of how men and women should act and look.

As I was looking for interesting ads to share with my students, I found this ad from Axe, a product from Unilever. The Axe commercials, which usually feature a man with an admiring group of scantily clad women fawning over him because he has just used the product, are at best mildly amusing (I begrudgingly admit) and are at worst dangerous for women everywhere in that they suggest woman are just objects to obtain. However, this ad is different from the other Axe ads and even different from ads that can be considered more offensive than the previously mentioned commercials.

This specific ad, which shows a woman face down in a bathtub full of water, apparently providing sexual pleasure for a man, does not have the right to a face, the right to an identity, or even the right to breathe. The ad is certainly harmful to women, but it also speaks out against sexuality. The man, with what can be interpreted as an entitled look on his face, is not even touching the drowning woman.

I have brought this ad to the attention of several students, friends, family members, and colleagues, many of whom did not share my same concerns. Some found my reference to “drowning” a stretch, pointed out that the woman is “voluntarily engaged” and suggested that I look at the ad with a less literal lens. Perhaps. However, if she is not physically drowning (though it is difficult to imagine that she is not, since after all, she has no access to air), she is certainly metaphorically drowning; she is submerged into an abyss where here identity is meaningless. When not taken “literally” and instead taken “metaphorically,”the results are no better.

The only thing that is missing in order to make the ad the absolute epitome of problematic advertising is a sponge in one of her hands so that she can simultaneously please the man and wash the tub. The advertisement, and many others, is scary in its cavalier attitude about the rights of women. It becomes “normal” for women to be perpetually cleaning and perpetually taking care of others, even at her own expense, or in this case life.

The intelligence of the ad makers and their decision to represent women in this manner is reflected in the bathtub itself. A critical thinker is not only left questioning how a woman could be treated in this brutal manner, but also how the bathtub became full without a faucet.

If this ad has upset you please let them know:
http://www.theaxeeffect.com/contact.html

Carly Anger is an instructor and PhD candidate at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The subject of her dissertation is American coming-of-age novels with female protagonists published in the 1940’s. Any comments/concerns are welcome.

New York, NY. Tony Simmons – a juvenile court guard convicted of molesting two girls in juvenile detention— was sentenced by Judge Carol Berkman to four years in prison and ten years probation on multiple counts of committing a Criminal Sexual Act and Sexual Abuse.  The judge noted that both the girls’ young ages and the position of Tony Simmons as an employee of the Department of Juvenile Justice entrusted with their care warranted a sentence in the maximum range.

NOW-NYC Executive Director, Sonia Ossorio called the news a victory for all survivors of sexual assault, saying:  “An attacker who was set to get a slap on the wrist will now be serving four years in prison, largely because our community of  women’s rights organizations and anti-violence advocates demanded that rape be taken seriously.”

Just this past November, Simmons had been days away from finalizing a plea deal of probation with no jail time for sexually assaulting three girls in his custody in the Manhattan Family Court Building.  After an overwhelming community outcry against the lenient sentence led by the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women, Judge Cassandra Mullen changed her offer to 3 years in state prison. Simmons chose to face trial, and on January 21^st, Simmons was found guilty by a jury of his peers on 12 of the 14 counts against him:  Criminal Sexual Act in the Third Degree (a class E felony, two counts), Sexual Abuse in the Second Degree (a class A misdemeanor, five counts), and Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree (a class B misdemeanor, five counts).

Ossorio points out, “He almost got away with it. Simmons targeted these girls precisely because he thought they were not in a position to stand up for themselves and that no one would believe them.  Today, he was proven wrong.”

In response to this egregious case and the initial offer of probation for a confessed rapist, NOW-NYC launched a “Take Rape Seriously” campaign to turn up the pressure on the criminal justice system in New York. Nearly 18% of women in the U.S. have survived a completed or attempted rape.  It’s estimated that only 39% of rapes are reported nationwide and only 6% of rapists will spend any time in prison.

“There is an epidemic of abuse happening to our most vulnerable kids, those in the juvenile justice system.  One in eight detained youth has been sexually abused according to a report by the Department of Justice.  Predators like Tony Simmons think these kids don’t matter to society,” said Ossorio.

The National Organization for Women is the nation’s largest organization working to advance women’s rights and improve women’s lives. The New York City Chapter of NOW, founded in 1966, is the largest chapter in the country with 5,000 members locally and 35,000 statewide.  NOW-NYC works to promote women’s reproductive rights, secure women’s economic empowerment, and end violence and discrimination against women.

“Ugandan Activist Named on Anti-Gay Hit List Found Murdered” – David Kato, a gay rights activist in Uganda, was found murdered in his home earlier this week.  Last year, his name, address, and photograph, appeared on a list of 100 gay men and lesbians living in Uganda.  This list was intended to incite violence, as evidenced by newspaper captions such as “hang them.”  This article offers great background information, up-to-date news on the current investigation, and more.

Stand with Brenda – As I just mentioned, life in Uganda is simply not safe for gay men and lesbians.  However, Brenda Namigadde, a lesbian from Ugandan, is likely to be deported from the United Kingdom tonight!  Eight years ago, she fled to avoid being “persecution for her sexuality;” if she is forced to return to Uganda, she will likely be harassed, tortured, or even killed.  Sign this petition as soon as possible to ensure that Brenda will be allowed to stay in the UK!

“How Abortion Bans Threaten Womens Lives” – Roe v. Wade overturned the abortion ban in the United States in 1973, yet 38 years later, women are still seeking abortions in unsafe environments.  In this article, Patty Skuster and Susan Schewel highlight the reality of this situation by discussing the illegal abortions that were being performed in a certified clinic in Philadelphia.  Even when abortion is legal, there are still many barriers to access that lead women into dangerous, even deadly, situations.

“No Jail Time for Lawrence Taylor” – Lawrence Taylor, a former American football player, was found guilty of having sex with a sixteen year-old girl that was trafficked into the sex trade last year.  Read this article to learn more about Taylor’s sentencing and domestic sex trafficking.

“When the politically fueled murder of a 9-year-old girl in Arizona is NOT national news”

“Stop Murder and Violence Against Sex Workers” – A great article from On the Issues about the treatment of sex workers by the criminal justice system and society at large.

“My First Day as an Abortion Doula” – In sharing her personal experiences, Miriam Perez shows how important doulas are for women seeking reproductive health services.  This article is truly an inspiration!

“The House GOP’s Plan to Redefine Rape”

Where’s the last place you’d expect to unearth a heretofore-unguessed chapter in feminist history? How about a biography of L. Frank Baum, author of the classic fairytale, The Wizard of Oz?

The biography in question is Finding Oz, by Evan I. Schwartz, which my mother and I began reading over the holidays. While the focus is, of course, mainly on Baum himself, Schwartz also describes a lot of the political and social environment of the day, as well as Baum’s own social environment. As part of this, Schwartz devotes a fair amount of time to Baum’s wife, Maud Gage, and her mother, Matilda Joslyn Gage.

I’ve never made a study of American feminist history, and neither I nor my mother had ever heard of Matilda Gage before. We had definitely, however, heard of two of her colleagues, with whom she worked closely on many feminist projects over the years: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Here are some of the highlights of their collaboration, related in Finding Oz:

After the Civil War, when prominent feminists formed the National Woman Suffrage Association—with Stanton as president and Anthony “the corresponding secretary”—Mrs. Gage took the post of chairman [sic] of the executive committee.

Gage defended Anthony in the latter’s trial for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election. Four years later, in 1876, she collaborated with Anthony on a major PR stunt at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

President Ulysses S. Grant had already rebuffed a formal request by suffragist leaders to read a statement at the celebration. But, like all good citizen-activists before and since, Gage, Anthony, and their three companions (who go unnamed in the book) refused to give up when faced with obstruction by an unenlightened authority.

Instead, they infiltrated the ceremony and, at a suitably dramatic moment during a reading from that selfsame Declaration of Independence, Gage and Anthony stormed the podium. Gage carried a scroll listing the suffragist’s demands, which she passed to Anthony, and which Anthony in turn presented to Vice-President Thomas Ferry, saying, “We present to you this Declaration of Rights of the Women Citizens of the United States.”

The suffragists then made good their escape, though not before scattering leaflets amongst the crowd. These read:

“The Women of the United States, denied for one hundred years the only means of self-government—the ballot—are political slaves, with greater cause for discontent, rebellion and revolution, than the men of 1776 … We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.”

Schwartz describes the event as “an indelible scene in American history,” but neither I nor my mother had an inkling of such an incredible scene ever having taken place.

Following this remarkable feat, Anthony, Gage, and Stanton—mostly the latter two—went on to write the first three volumes of History of Woman Suffrage. Ida Husted Harper later expanded the series by another three volumes. Wikipedia assures me History of Woman Suffrage was “the standard scholarly resource [on the women’s movement] for much of the 20th century,” but again, neither I nor my mother had ever heard of it.

On the specific topic of Matilda Gage, Wikipedia explains she “was considered to be more radical than” her two collaborators, Stanton and Anthony. Schwartz adds that she “fought a more principled fight than either of them.”

It sounds like Gage was one hell of a woman. Apart from being a dedicated feminist activist, she campaigned for the abolition of slavery in the midst of the Civil War (back when Lincoln and the Congress were still trying to make the war about preserving the union, rather than ending slavery). She named her son Thomas Clarkson after an abolitionist, and always took pride that her father’s house was a station on the Underground Railroad.

She also stood for the rights of American Indians, though I’m not familiar enough with the New York Indian tribes she wrote of to judge whether her description of their culture is accurate, or Noble Savage romanticism.

Apart from her work on the first three volumes of History of Woman Suffrage, Gage wrote many articles and books of her own, Woman, Church and State prominently among the latter.

Schwartz paints a picture of a woman whose rhetoric was powerful and robust in writing and in oratory, using juicy descriptive phrases such as “her venomous logic.”

Finding Oz also includes a nice selection of quotes from Matilda Gage, such as this one from the suffrage movement’s third convention in Syracuse, 1852: “There will be a long moral warfare before the citadel yields. In the meantime, let us take possession of the outposts. Fear not any attempt to frown down the revolution.”

She also criticized both Christianity as practiced in this country and the US government, referring at one point to “the tyranny of Church and State” and declaring: “The progress of our movement will overthrow every existing form of these institutions; its end will be a regenerated world.” (In later years, her strident criticism of the Church in the US often put her at odds with other leaders of the movement.)

Matilda Joslyn Gage died on March 18^th, 1898. Despite such a dynamic personality and her decades of tireless activism, she has apparently faded from our collective memory. Schwartz points out that she “is rarely mentioned in histories of the [women’s] movement. She remains obscure outside her old hometown, where her house has been designated a landmark by the state of New York.”

This is a shame, as it means students of feminism and the population in general are denied knowledge of a fascinating and inspiring figure of US history.

Lincoln Alpern is an off-and-on college student whose passions include social justice and sci-fi-fantasy literature. He spreads his time about equally between Peekskill, New York, and Yellow Springs, Ohio.

The Scholar and Feminist Online, a “multimedia, peer-reviewed web based journal… published by the Barnard Center for Research on Women,” is a collection you don’t want to miss!  This fabulous online journal features a wide variety of articles by feminist activists and academic scholars.  The pieces deal with pressing social and political issues, such as diversity and difference within the feminist movement, the need for feminist community, and issues of intersectionality.

Their newest edition, Polyphonic Feminisms: Acting in Concert, focuses on “the need for a diverse many to work – often noisily together.”

“Feminists are often on the forefront of groundbreaking moments, and this issue boasts contributions from many seasoned activists and scholars who make their own activist contributions. All of the contributors wrestle with pressing questions and offer visions of feminist political practices that reflect on failures, problems, and dilemmas, but preserve hope for collective engagement. In a panoply of sound, sight, and text, Polyphonic Feminisms does not demand unity or agreement, but rather allows for a flourishing of ruminations on what feminism is, where it has been, and what paths it might travel forward.” – Catherine Samah

The contributors come from all different backgrounds and each bring their own unique perspectives to the collection.  While reading these articles, I could not help but reflect on my own personal experiences with feminism.  I reflected on my “feminist story” while reading Sarah Ahmed’s article, “Feminist Killjoys (and Other Willful Subjects)” and felt appreciative of the power of my voice while reading Nomy Naam’s article, “Singing as Social Justice.”  The pieces are fun and easy to read, but also thought-provoking and inspiring.