First and foremost, a few links from Sociological Images. Due to time constraints, I went a month or so without reading the blog, so it’s time to play catchup.
Ejaculation Imagery in a Dutch Creamer Ad
In which the milk of an (s)exploited mother acts as a stand-in for semen; at commercial’s climax (pun most definitely intended), said semen is “accidentally” spurted all over the face of a unsuspecting woman. About as classy as it is original!
Do You Love Animals? Do You Have Lady Bits? Take Off Your Clothes!
Lisa examines a series of UPI photos of a PETA event that took place on Capitol Hill in order to protest/celebrate National Hot Dog Day. The photos feature two bikini-clad Lettuce Ladies – serving soydogs alongside two fully-dressed male PETA members – and the slideshow of ten pictures includes four boob/crotch shots. “Gender parity” my dimpled ass.
PMS = A “Sea Of Suffering” For Everyone In The Land
Oh boys. These commercials from the California Milk Processor Board are so dreadful, I’m actually struck speechless. Luckily, Sarah Haskins is on the case:
Milk – i.e., the bodily secretions of tortured and grieving mothers – tames unruly hair! It conquers PMS (and PMS-induced tsunamis)! It cures depression, acne, lesbianism and spinster aunt-ism, even!
Ah, milk!: the elixir of the patriarchy / kyriarchy / megatheocorporatocracy.
Kate Harding @ Salon’s Broadsheet: Michael Pollan wants you back in the kitchen
Writing about the upcoming Julia Child biopic, “Julie and Julia,” Michael Pollan slags on the women’s lib movement for slagging on household druggery, including but not limited to cooking three wholesome meals a day – from scratch, natch. Kate Harding takes him to task:
Pollan takes pains to assure us that the large number of women now working outside the home is only partially responsible for this trend, and that he’s not calling for women to get back into the kitchen or anything. He’s calling for everybody to get back into the kitchen — or at least one cook in every household, and if that happens to be the woman, well, he didn’t make the rules! To be fair, Pollan would probably not be such a fierce advocate for home cooking if he didn’t enjoy it himself, but I still can’t help thinking his penis is showing when he describes Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” — which also debuted in 1963 — as “the book that taught millions of American women to regard housework, cooking included, as drudgery, indeed as a form of oppression.” Funny, I always thought Friedan became a feminist icon because she articulated what millions of women already felt, not because she brainwashed them into believing that repetitive, menial, unpaid labor might not be the best use of their talents.
Snort.
Look. Cooking and baking can most certainly be fun and creative activities, but only as long as they don’t become chores – required, routine and always falling on the shoulders of a single household member. As those shoulders more often than not are attached to female bodies, perhaps Pollan should focus more energy on tsk, tsking his male counterparts rather than the women’s liberation movement.
Besides, if cooking isn’t “drudgery” or a “form of oppression,” why aren’t men crowding their wives out of the kitchen en masse, fighting for their right to baste and frost alongside their more “privileged” sisters?
Like I said, snort.
As the title suggests, “Women & Dogs” is a Flickr group for photos of women and their dog-friends. The group’s avatar – a retro, sepia-toned thumbnail of a Flapper-esque woman and a very fancy-looking dog – shows promise (e.g., of a anthrozoological or sociocultural/historical examination of the bond between women and canines), but unfortunately, many of the most recent submissions are simply of women posing with their purebred accessories at dog shows. Nothing groundbreaking, in other words.
If you’re a Flickrite and smitten with the idea, why not join the group and share your own images? I’d love to see the group take a turn for the less speciesist.
The Sierra Club: Yep, We’re Too White
I had to chuckle when I opened the latest edition of the Sierra Club’s Club Insider newsletter, the subject of which trumpets: “Yep, We’re Too White.”
The teaser reads,
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called for greater diversity in the environmental movement while speaking to the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council last week. Jackson said that environmentalism does not come in any one shape, size, or look and that it is also about protecting people in the places where they live, work, and rear families. The Sierra Club not only agrees with her, we’re also doing something about it with diversity programs ranging from our Environmental Justice and Community Partnerships program to Building Bridges to the Outdoors for inner-city youth.
“We are proud that Sierra Club has successful diversity programs already established,” said the Sierra Club President Allison Chin. “Now, with the leadership of a diversity council and my election as our first Asian-American president, the Sierra Club is committed to becoming an even more welcoming and inclusive organization.”
For more information about Sierra Club’s diversity programs, go to: http://www.sierraclub.org/diversity
While the Sierra Club should be lauded for these outreach efforts, it still has a long way to go; like most environmental groups, they have yet to realize that a truly just, fair and inclusive social movement must encompass non-human animals in addition to humans of all colors, genders, sexualities, abilities, sizes, etc. – and not as exploitable resources, but as sentient beings deserving of protection for their own sakes.
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Videos in this post:
6/5/09 – Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Story Time
Inside every woman is a little girl. And inside that little girl is a littler girl. And inside THAT little girl is a princess, waiting to be rescued by a hot dude with a magical product. (3.23)
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Photo via Flickr user xyldes and shared under the following Creative Commons license: Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic.
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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare patriarchy intersections parallel oppressions animals and women sexism misogyny gender feminism race racism violence stereotyping exploitation sex intersectionality kyriarchy megatheocorporatocracy pop culture speciesism flickr photos news in the news quick links link roundup link dump Intersectionality ‘Round the Interwebs video video blogging sarah haskins milk the sierra club peta lettuce ladies pms michael pollan julia child dogs women and dogs
