“Yes, I believe you can be a feminist and still be pro-life. I am.”
Hmmmm. Methinks you would get a kick out of meeting one of my first internet acquaintances (she doesn’t know me under my current nom de guerre, of course), Pat Goltz. Very definitely a “feminist for life,” part of an organization by that name, second-degree black belt (last I heard), etc. You might like her. Cool lady.
http://www.seghea.com/pat/pat.html

Very interesting-Thanks for the link!
BBM

It’s interesting that you say that about “obviously gay.” I came across a bunch of Dolce ads where there was a naked man and a bunch of men standing around him ready to attack like that first ad I have on my post. Many wanted to know where the outrage was about those, that violence against gays is even more accepted than violence against women. But that’s an entirely different issue.
I’m happy to hear you say that about women, but sadly, as you said, many of the ads still objectify women. When I taught these sexual assault awareness classes at Pitt, we used to show a progression of acceptability and violence. It all started with objectifying women, first in non-violent ways and then it just progresses onward.
This stuff bothered me when I was in school and as a woman, but as a mother of two daughters. . . it’s just hitting home in a whole new way now. Thanks for your comment.
BBM

Okay, well I just turned off the video because I didn’t want to scare my son.
It was just pictures of runway models.
THAT is fucked up.

The second part of the video is very interesting. When you get a chance, fast forward and watch it. It’s about body image of those who have eating disorders. Wow, disturbing.
And thanks for your outrage participation. 😉
BBM

Welcome back! I was wondering where you’ve been!
BBM

Well, you certainly provoked alot of thought! 🙂 I have wondered how it is that women let themselves believe that thin is never too thin. I have not ever had a weight issue, until I turned 42. My husband says I am sexy, but I look at me and say “ooh, Botticelli, baby!” And I try to accept it. It’s hard. I would never subject myself as those young ‘uns have. It IS not tasteful, nor is it the least bit attractive.
The man-bashing thing totally bites. I once wrote a blog about the “Eve Ensler” mentality and that feminist “crap!” Funny thing is that “they” hate men because they got what they wanted and discovered it wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. Thus, instead of changing priorities as you did, they wasted energy, time and made the men the object of their inadequacies.
No kids, lots of money, no man, no companionship- It would so suck to be them!
I suspect that the guys in your class have been conditioned in a way that they don’t realize how they themselves look at women and the comments I have heard, for instance. And, though your student presenters were not blaming, it seems obvious that there was some truth to the meme that women are sex objects and the media, hollyweird and the like are all complicit, even the women. The guys were offended, if only by themselves. The truth can sometimes smack them, but the good news is that maybe they will change the habits they have acquired.
Yes,I joined the outrage.

Those ads are disgusting, and offensive. Ugh. I also watched the video. I agree with the message in it.
However, I think the really hard part is that we’re told to “reclaim our body image”, but in our society that is tantamount to simply admitting defeat, and taking the consolation prize. At least, that’s the opposing side of it. Not that it’s rational, because it isn’t. The problem is, once they start up with that argument, no one wants to feel like they’ve lost a fight. I’m not stating that from a remote perspective, but one far too personal. I’ve been 230 lbs, desperately wishing I could just learn to not eat at all. I grew up with a mother who had both bulimia and anorexia, and subjected me to many of her behaviors – even though I never engaged in those specific ones myself.
I’m a grown woman now, and I’m healthy. I’m 5’10, 165 lbs, I’m even a personal trainer (among many other things), I have run a marathon, I can bench over 200 lbs… and it’s not enough for people, because I do not look like the cover or a fitness magazine. In fact, by society’s standards I am fat. Period.
I’m smart enough to reason with myself that I’m acceptable, but stupid enough to make it an argument nonetheless. I can honestly say I’m embarrassed to meet up with people, because of my size – whether this weight or 230 lbs. I can also say, though, that I am not a passive participant in this behavior and I do battle with it every day.
I join you in the outrage against these ads, and the media and how women are portrayed in it… but with a heavy heart, wondering if anything can be done beyond me fighting to keep my daughter clear headed about her own body image while silently doing battle with my own.

Hello
First off, I just came across your blog and enjoy reading it so far.
I happen to work in fashion. Here’s my thoughts on the matter… I totally agree with you on the negative impact of using violent imagery in advertising. How DOES that sell shoes?
As for the eating disorder thing, a lot (if not all) of the photos in that video have been photoshopped. Here’s another video that shows a series of images before and after the terrible retouching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLM7UueffEo
Another link on the subject:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/people/models.asp
I ask everyone here to look through fashion magazines (not random images on the internet) and try and find any editorials or advertisements that feature models who look like that. The typical fashion model is a size 4, which is certainly slim but not disgusting. As a 5’9″ 110 lb, size 2 (HEALTHY) girl, there’s really not a lot of modeling jobs. Someone smaller than I would never work; agencies don’t represent models they don’t think will make them money (and a sick model is not a working model).
I don’t like to hear people saying that the industry is promoting eating disorders, because it isn’t. What actually is dangerous are those pro-ana websites.
Okay, done rambling now.

Okay, this might be long, I warn you.
For your class: well, it all depends on the CLASS, I think. Depending on your group of people, what you’re going to get out of the discussion will vary, you know that. Some will agree, some won’t. I think, personally, the kids were probably not in the best of moods, and would usually have reacted differently to the presentation – but it sounds amazing!
I’m a college student now (getting ready to graduate this year I HOPE) and I’ve taken a few Women’s Studies/Gender Studies classes. They varied. I didn’t like Women’s Studies too much, mostly because the teacher tended to attack you if you disagreed – but I did a research project on the same thing your students did, using photos from fashion magazines my friends gave me (I refuse to buy them myself). There are a lot of those kind of photos – while not THAT bad, close – in magazines today. Or, well, a year or two ago, there were. That was before they started banning skinny models and such, and the outrage at violent ones like that has lessened their degree a lot.
But what I hope you realize is that you ARE a feminist. I wrote a paper for Gender Studies this semester about how the word ‘feminist’ has become a BAD thing, associated with, like you said, hairy-armpit bra-burners. And that further scares people from activism. Just like you, they hasten to assure people – “but I’m not a feminist.” Like so many things (democrat, republican, christian) feminist is a word that is individualized to the person. You might not be the historical 60s/70s feminist, but I’d warrant most feminists today aren’t either. We’ve moved past that. You can be pro-life. You can be for or against anything – but wanting to make things better for women – yeah, you’re a feminist. Case in point: see above.
As for the rest, you’re right: the fashion industry in general needs to change a LOT.
Frankly, our culture has a LOT to do with the plague of eating disorders that students are facing – I think its even worse now than when I was in high school, just a few years ago (though, granted, I didn’t much GO to high school, I spent that time in hospitals for eating disorders, but I think that kind of proves my point, no?)
I’ve spent most of my life battling eating disorders, but my mother is anorexic: I think it had a lot to do with HER more than the culture as a whole – personally.
But the problems … not a single girl I know doesn’t struggle in some way with body image – but still, I’m sure that’s universal across time.
For lack of a good way to explain, I’m going to give you a quote here (I also have done extensive research on eating disorders & culture) from an author and young woman with an eating disorder, Marya Hornbacher:
“An eating disorder is in many ways a rather logical elaboration on a cultural idea. While the personality of an eating disordered person plays a huge role – we are often extreme people, highly competitive, incredibly self-critical, driven, perfectionistic, tending toward excess – and while the family of an eating disordered person plays a fairly crucial part […] I do believe the cultural environment is an equal, if not greater, culprit in the sheer POPULARITY of eating disorders. There were numerous methods of self-destruction available to me, countless outlets that could have channeled my drive, perfectionism, ambition – […] ways in which I could have responded to a culture I found highly problematic. I did not choose those ways. I chose an eating disorder. I cannot help but think that, had I lived in a culture where “thinness” was not regarded with a strange state of grace, I might have sought out another means of attaining that grace, perhaps one that would not have so seriously damaged my body, and so radically distorted my sense of who I am.” (Wasted, p. 6)
Therein is, I think, the root of all evil: eating disorders are SICKNESSES, and they are not, at their heart, about weight or appearance at all (something a lot of people don’t realize, and something that took ME a long time to realize in myself) – but the fact is that they are becoming the Self Destruction Of Choice for young kids today because of our CULTURE. Perverting cultural ideals into destruction? Yeah, that makes sense.
I pray you raise your girls with the ability to fight the STUPID ideals of culture that is forced down our throat as to how to look or act – or at least recognize eating disorders or other things if they ever DO show. I think your girls will grow up strong, with a mom like you.
As for the pro-ana websites… they are horrible. Seriously disgusting and damaging. But the fact is that they do not CAUSE eating disorders. They make them worse, a lot worse. Taken from (sadly) personal experience. But fortunately you can’t GET an eating disorder, they’re not contagious or transferable: however, there are a lot of girls out there WITHOUT an eating disorder who have problems because they WANT an eating disorder and they don’t realize that they are DEADLY, and that there is nothing good there. My mom is dying, slowly and painfully, from her eating disorder: I really wish girls would see the horror that is an eating disorder in its end stages. I think we should find a way to get through to all these girls who now WANT an eating disorder because they think its COOL. It would get them attention, they’d be thin, everyone would take care of them… blah blah blah. There’s something sick in this world when people WANT to starve themselves to death.
Anyway, interesting post.

First, people in the fashion industry, which is where these ads come from, have always been part of the counter-culture, not mainstream. They’ve always been a bit wacked and twisted. But these days, to condemn them for their perverted ads is to be branded A) homophobic B) a religious nut or C) a censorship Nazi. The ONLY criticism anyone is allowed to level at them is that they promote violence against women.
Secondly, for every image of violence against women, there are hundreds promoting violence against men and boys. But to protest these is to be instantly crucified by feminists. There are endless streams of ads depicting sexual violence against males as A) empowering to women B) comedy or C) harmless fun. Sometimes its all three. Until women protest ads featuring sexual violence against men with the same vigor they expect men to display in protesting ads such as these, there is going to be a backlash, a new counter-culture which winks and gives a bitter pass to this crap.
The only ‘movement’ that is going to make things right, make things BETTER for BOTH of us, is a true equality movement wherein sexist bigotry targeting EITHER sex is condemned equally. Don’t ask me to get upset about these ads and then laugh when the same company promotes ads featuring women murdering their husbands or kicking them in the balls or making them crawl on the ground in their underwear. The people who create the kinds of ads you show here are the same people who create the misandric ads I just mentioned.
If you want this stopped, stand hand-in-hand with the men protesting the ads promoting sexual violence against men, a general atitude of disdain for men, or the attitude that women being violent and abusive to men is empowering. If we stood together, this would stop. But so long as we stand apart, with one movement for women, funded by government, and one totally unfunded non-government movement for men, this will not stop. It will simply shift around, targeting you, and then me, and then you again, and then back to me.
One of the likely reasons so many of your students reacted as they did to women protesting these ads targeting women is because for the past 40 years there has been open war on the male sex, mostly run by shrill man-hating Baby Boomer women. People have grown so accustomed to the extremism of the radical feminists that they respond to any expression of protest about the treatment of women with a knee-jerk reaction, expecting raging man-hating feminists to scream at them rather than you, trying to be fair and reasonable. It’s what happens when one group is increasingly abused for a very long time while the other side is increasingly privileged, protected, and oblivious to the suffering of the other. This can only be stopped by truly fighting BOTH forms of sexism, misogyny AND misandry. And that is simply not what feminism is about. Fight both, or you become part of the problem.

Several years ago, I read a book called, “Deadly Persuasion” that was all about the effects of advertising on women and girls – pretty interesting stuff. Very much in line with the information you’re presenting here.
The scary part is when you add up how many of these ads we are exposed to on a daily basis – it’s kind of overwhelming. Really interesting post!