You know, the funny thing about this blog is that I was initially going to use it as a way for potential employers to see how I write outside the world of advertising. And instead, I spent my first post talking about orifices, and now I'm about to talk about sexual issues AGAIN, and I'm also going to talk about advertising. This is not exactly going to plan.
Ohwelltoobad. So! A few days ago, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article about a non-profit called About-Face, who maintains that our culture's emphasis on physical appearance creates a "toxic media environment" for women and girls. True enough! Ultimately, what the constant bombardment of impossible physical ideals does is distract us from directing our efforts toward more important (not to mention more
achievable!) goals: educating ourselves, building a career, being a good, compassionate human being. We get stuck on the hamster wheel, chasing after the unattainable ideal of beauty. For some of us, it's practically a second (or third, or fourth) job. And we fatten the wallets of the very companies that feed on our insecurities.
BUT. There was something in About Face Executive Director Jennifer Berger's comments that rubbed me the wrong way. There are really two issues going on here: Women being encouraged to focus on their looks over the substance of their character AND our culture's narrow idea of what constitutes sexual attractiveness. These issues are certainly entwined, but Berger conflates them:
After centuries of objectification, Berger says, it's really hard for women to think of their bodies in terms of how they help them live: Legs that give them the power to walk, lungs that give them the ability to breath, etc.Berger goes on to say:
"'Talk about not stylish -- that is so not cool to think about all the things your body does for you! I sound like a kindergarten teacher when I say that, but it's completely necessary to think about your body that way. Once we start thinking about our bodies that way, we'll stop abusing them the way we do, with constant dieting and constant criticism and constant putting them up for show.'"Unfortunately, what Berger never touches on is that we DO put our bodies up for show. We are sexual creatures. We use our bodies to attract potential mates, just as we use them to breathe and walk. The answer to a society that defines sexual attractiveness in ridiculous terms is not to reject the idea of being sexually attractive or the importance of it. The answer is to redefine what is considered sexually attractive. And cultures around the world been doing that for centuries. So let's get crackin', I say!
To see what I mean about About-Face missing the mark, take a look at the
Gallery of Offenders on the About-Face website. What you've got here is a lot of ads from brands like BCBG, Skyy Vodka and Loreal. Brands that are going to go after your desire to be sexually attractive. Then look at the
Gallery of Winners. Here you've got brands like Talbots and Keds, i.e. brands that DON'T traditionally go after your desire to be sexy. So. It would seem that the message here is not that the offenders are offering up unrealistic ideals of sexual attractiveness—their crime is that they're showing female sexuality, period! Now, in the Gallery of Winners gallery, there is an image of a curvy girl in her skivvies, but that's because she's selling plus-size skivvies. So, it's not exactly an example of Aphrodite reinvented.
Oh, and a couple more things.
This post insists that the following ad encourages women not to work and helps justify violence against women.
Um, yeah. And
this one insists the model is supposed to be a corpse, again encouraging violence against women.
Both posts are neither helpful nor correct. Just as we do not want our daughters to grow up thinking they need to be tall, blonde and skinny to be attractive, we don't want them to grow up irrational and flailingly accusatory, with poor skills of analysis.
