like a fish needs a bicycle...

more on women, sex, and the media

so i blogged last week about the oppressive force of "women's fashion." among the many wonderful comments to that post, there was a particularly insightful one from andrew, in which he made the crucial observation that the fashion industry, like many mediums that discriminate against women, is based on the sexualization of women. it's no secret that the reason women wear heels, hose, skirts, and make-up is, in one way or another, men. we do it because we have been socialized to believe and/or have empirically observed that it makes us attractive to the opposite sex, or because we are forced to do so by educational and professional structures that have been built and are being run by men, or because we have been taught that these things are inherently womanly by other women who have long been steeped in such patriarchal notions. i don't think any logical person would contend that, if there were no men, women would wear heels or makeup.

what's interesting to me is how subtle and truly pervasive the sexualization of women is. it extends to so many spheres of society and so many integral aspects of life, and yet doesn't elicit so much as a raised eyebrow from the majority of world's population. everyone knows the media portrays women as sexual objects without agency. everyone knows societal stigma for overweight women can be so powerful as to foster eating disorders in 1 out of 4 college women in america. everyone knows that sex sells, and "sex" in marketing focuses on women.

what we may not always be aware of is that, in addition to the hose and heels paradigm that i've already implicated, women are sexually objectified in many other seemingly benign ways. i've read a few really good articles in the past week about the sexualization and eroticization of women and girls in many arenas, and they've got me thinking. i'm including the text of these article in the extended post.

the first is a great overview of several women- and sex-related phenomena by bob herbert, a new york times editorial columnist, called "why aren't we shocked?"
the second is another op-ed piece from the new york times, publishedon the same day, and written by allison glock -- it is quite timely, as it is about women's halloween costumes.
the third is yet another timely new york times article about women's halloween costumes by stephanie rosenbloom.
the last is a disturbing, but very insightful review of the hypersexualization of (often underage) girls in american apparel clothing ads.

all are worth a read. also, these pictures of girls' halloween costumes are a little frightening -- for non-halloween reasons. and this site is definitely worth a look.

so i guess you could call this post installment two on this theme. i don't doubt there will be more.

Why Aren't We Shocked?
By BOB HERBERT

New York Times
October 16, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

"Who needs a brain when you have these?"
— message on an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt for young women

In the recent shootings at an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania and a large public high school in Colorado, the killers went out of their way to separate the girls from the boys, and then deliberately attacked only the girls.

Ten girls were shot and five killed at the Amish school. One girl was killed and a number of others were molested in the Colorado attack.

In the widespread coverage that followed these crimes, very little was made of the fact that only girls were targeted. Imagine if a gunman had gone into a school, separated the kids up on the basis of race or religion, and then shot only the black kids. Or only the white kids. Or only the Jews.

There would have been thunderous outrage. The country would have first recoiled in horror, and then mobilized in an effort to eradicate that kind of murderous bigotry. There would have been calls for action and reflection. And the attack would have been seen for what it really was:
a hate crime.

None of that occurred because these were just girls, and we have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that violence against females is more or less to be expected. Stories about the rape, murder and mutilation of women and girls are staples of the news, as familiar to us as weather forecasts. The startling aspect of the Pennsylvania attack was that this terrible thing happened at a school in Amish country, not that it happened to girls.

The disrespectful, degrading, contemptuous treatment of women is so pervasive and so mainstream that it has just about lost its ability to shock. Guys at sporting events and other public venues have shown no qualms about raising an insistent chant to nearby women to show their breasts. An ad for a major long-distance telephone carrier shows three apparently naked women holding a billing statement from a competitor.
The text asks, "When was the last time you got screwed?"

An ad for Clinique moisturizing lotion shows a woman's face with the lotion spattered across it to simulate the climactic shot of a porn video.

We have a problem. Staggering amounts of violence are unleashed on women every day, and there is no escaping the fact that in the most sensational stories, large segments of the population are titillated by that violence. We've been watching the sexualized image of the murdered 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey for 10 years. JonBenet is dead. Her mother is dead. And we're still watching the video of this poor child prancing in lipstick and high heels.

What have we learned since then? That there's big money to be made from thongs, spandex tops and sexy makeovers for little girls. In a misogynistic culture, it's never too early to drill into the minds of girls that what really matters is their appearance and their ability to please men sexually.

A girl or woman is sexually assaulted every couple of minutes or so in the U.S. The number of seriously battered wives and girlfriends is far beyond the ability of any agency to count. We're all implicated in this carnage because the relentless violence against women and girls is linked at its core to the wider society's casual willingness to dehumanize women and girls, to see them first and foremost as sexual vessels — objects — and never, ever as the equals of men.

"Once you dehumanize somebody, everything is possible," said Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the women's advocacy group Equality Now.

That was never clearer than in some of the extreme forms of pornography that have spread like nuclear waste across mainstream America. Forget the embarrassed, inhibited raincoat crowd of the old days. Now Mr. Solid Citizen can come home, log on to this $7 billion mega-industry and get his kicks watching real women being beaten and sexually assaulted on Web sites with names like "Ravished Bride" and "Rough Sex — Where Whores Get Owned."

Then, of course, there's gangsta rap, and the video games where the players themselves get to maul and molest women, the rise of pimp culture (the Academy Award-winning song this year was "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp"), and on and on.

You're deluded if you think this is all about fun and games. It's all part of a devastating continuum of misogyny that at its farthest extreme touches down in places like the one-room Amish schoolhouse in normally quiet Nickel Mines, Pa.

[the clinique ad that herbert refers to can be viewed here.
~nas]

Halloween on Heels
By ALLISON GLOCK

The New York Times
October 16, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor

NORTH CHATHAM, N.Y.

ALL I wanted was a pair of mouse ears. It is Halloween season, and to the delight of my children, I promised to dress up as the country mouse.
I was a recent transplant to rural life, so it made sense. Besides, I already owned the overalls and the flannel shirt. I just needed the ears. And maybe a wedge of plastic cheese.

So my girls, 4 and 6, and I went to Target, which has much better lighting than Wal-Mart — and Isaac Mizrahi. It wasn’t long before I discovered that the only ears on offer at the Target Festival of Fright were of the “sexy cat” variety. Sexy cat is fine if you are in your 20’s, unimaginative and trying to persuade people that you possess latent feline qualities. As I am neither latent nor in my 20’s, I continued down the Adult Costume aisle.

I walked past the displays for the sexy devil and the sexy bunny and the sexy leopard — which, confounding logic, was already sold out — before happening upon the wall of full adult costumes. The first was Tavern Lady, an off-the-shoulder dress and faux-leather vest. It was followed by French Maid (ruffled mini-dress with matching headpiece), Cheerleader (pleated micro-mini and fitted vest) and Wonder Woman, which had not only a nearly invisible skirt but also red vinyl boot covers that reached to the thigh.

At $49.99, Wonder Woman was among the priciest costumes, along with the Geisha — both $20 more than Stewardess, which consisted only of a polyester wrap dress with a plunging neckline.

A quick trip to Wal-Mart and Kmart revealed the same dubious selections.
While the hemlines were slightly lower on the Kmart French Maid and Cheerleader, Wal-Mart hewed to form with a saucy Red Riding Hood and a naughty rag doll, advertising a “sultry vinyl bodice and thigh highs ...
lollipop not included.”

A theme was emerging. And it wasn’t Halloween. Since when did Halloween costumes become marital aids? The hobo has turned into the Hillbilly Honey. The traditional vampire is now the Mistress of Darkness. I have nothing against playing erotic dress-up, or even mass-market fetishism.
I’d just prefer it didn’t converge with a family holiday (and wasn’t sold next to the dryer sheets). If you want to play cheerleader at home, go team. But trick-or-treating with your children in anything featuring latex and cleavage seems like a little too much trick.

And really, wasn’t Halloween the one day modern women could relax about looking hot? What if I just want to be a mummy sans yummy?

I noticed that on the outside of every package was a photo of a woman modeling not only the costume, but teetering heels and bras of the push-up variety. The First Lady costume was not, as one might expect, a red business suit, but a pink crepe mini-dress. At least it had the matching pillbox hat. The angel was dubbed “heaven’s hottie.” Even the witch had a slit up her tattered skirt.

My girls were confused. “Where are the monsters?” they asked. “Where are the superheroes?” I pointed weakly to Wonder Woman and her thigh-high boots. “She’s pretty,” said my 4-year-old. Before adding, “You can see her breasts.”

As I watched them scan the selections, soaking in the unspoken message, I remembered my freshman year in college, going to a Halloween party dressed as a pumpkin. My face was painted orange. My torso was covered in fabric stuffed into a wide, round orb. It was not seductive. And it hadn’t occurred to me that it should be. There were no adult pumpkin costumes in the superstores. No vegetable costumes of any sort.

We moved along the aisle. I casually searched for the male equivalent of the Stewardess. Perhaps a Hot Fireman costume? Or maybe Handyman? But there was no Pool Boy. No Sexy C.E.O. There were, in fact, very few men’s costumes at all. A gorilla. A generic monster. A handful of serial killers.

We gave up on the mouse ears. Walking back, I noticed in the middle of the boas and six-inch heels and fishnets hung a Nun costume. It was a floor-length robe with modified wimple. Unlike the other ensembles, which offered bust and hip measurements, it was one size fits most. The
price: a modest $9.99. According to the Target Web site, it is a best seller. Probably among men.

Good Girls Go Bad, for a Day
By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

The New York Times
Published: October 19, 2006

IN her thigh-highs and ruby miniskirt, Little Red Riding Hood does not appear to be en route to her grandmother’s house. And Goldilocks, in a snug bodice and platform heels, gives the impression she has been sleeping in everyone’s bed. There is a witch wearing little more than a Laker Girl uniform, a fairy who appears to shop at Victoria’s Secret and a cowgirl with a skirt the size of a tea towel.

TRICKS Seemingly innocuous characters have a sexy edge in costumes, which evoke male fantasies and reinforce a larger cultural message:
younger is hotter.
Anyone who has watched the evolution of women’s Halloween costumes in the last several years will not be surprised that these images — culled from the Web sites of some of the largest Halloween costume retailers — are more strip club than storybook. Or that these and other costumes of questionable taste will be barely covering thousands of women who consider them escapist, harmless fun on Halloween.

“It’s a night when even a nice girl can dress like a dominatrix and still hold her head up the next morning,” said Linda M. Scott, the author of “Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism” (Palgrave
Macmillan) and a professor of marketing at the University of Oxford in England.

The trend is so pervasive it has been written about by college students in campus newspapers, and Carlos Mencia, the comedian, jokes that Halloween should now be called Dress-Like-a-Whore Day.

But the abundance of risqué costumes that will be shrink-wrapped around legions of women come Oct. 31 prompts a larger question: Why have so many girls grown up to trade in Wonder Woman costumes for little more than Wonderbras?

“Decades after the second wave of the women’s movement, you would expect more of a gender-neutral range of costumes,” said Adie Nelson, the author of “The Pink Dragon Is Female: Halloween Costumes and Gender Markers,” an analysis of 469 children’s costumes and how they reinforce traditional gender messages that was published in The Psychology of Women Quarterly in 2000.

Dr. Nelson, a professor of sociology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said the trend toward overtly sexualized costumes actually begins with little girls. “Heroic figures for women or considered icons of femininity are very much anchored in the femme fatale imagery,” she said, adding that those include an assortment of Disney heroines, witches, cocktail waitresses, French maids and an “interchangeable variety of beauty queens.”

While researching “Pink Dragon,” Dr. Nelson found that even costumes for little girls were gendered. Boys got to be computers while the girls were cupcakes. Today, there are bride costumes for little girls but one is hard pressed to find groom costumes for little boys.
Additionally, Dr. Nelson said, the girls’ costumes are designed in ways that create the semblance of a bust where there is none. “Once they’re older women it’s just a continuation of that same gender trend,” she said.

Men’s costumes are generally goofy or grotesque ensembles with “Animal House”-inspired names like Atomic Wedgie and Chug-A-Lug Beer Can. And when they dress up as police officers, firefighters and soldiers, they actually look like people in those professions. The same costumes for women are so tight and low-cut they are better suited for popping out of a cake than outlasting an emergency.

Obviously, however, many women see nothing wrong with making Halloween less about Snickers bars and SweeTarts and more about eye candy.

Rebecca Colby, 28, a library clerk in Milwaukee, said the appeal of sexy costumes lies in escaping the workaday, ho-hum dress code.

“I’m not normally going to wear a corset to go out,” said Ms. Colby, who has masqueraded as a Gothic witch with a low-cut bodice, a minidress-wearing bumblebee, a flapper and, this year, most likely, a “vixen pirate.”

“Even though you’re in a costume when you go out to a party in a bar or something, you still want to look cute and sexy and feminine,” she said.

Indeed, many women think that showing off their bodies “is a mark of independence and security and confidence,” said Pat Gill, the interim director of the Institute of Communications Research and a professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign.

It is a wonder gyms do not have “get in shape for Halloween” specials.

In her book “Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality”
(Harvard University Press), Deborah Tolman, the director of the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University and a professor of human sexuality studies there, found that some 30 teenage girls she studied understood being sexy as “being sexy for someone else, not for themselves,” she said.

When the girls were asked what makes them feel sexy, they had difficulty answering, Dr. Tolman said, adding that they heard the question as “What makes you look sexy?”

Many women’s costumes, with their frilly baby-doll dresses and high- heeled Mary Janes, also evoke male Lolita fantasies and reinforce the larger cultural message that younger is hotter.

“It’s not a good long-term strategy for women,” Dr. Tolman said.

But does that mean women should not use Halloween as an excuse to shed a few inhibitions?

“I think it depends on the spirit in which you’re doing it,” Dr.
Tolman said. “I’m not going to go and say this is bad for all women.”

Perhaps, say some scholars, it could even be good. Donning one of the many girlish costumes that sexualize classic characters from books, including “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” “Cinderella” and “The Wizard of Oz,” can be campy, female sartorial humor, said Professor Gill. It can be a way to embrace the fictional characters women loved as children while simultaneously taking a swipe at them, she said. “The humor gives you a sense of power and confidence that just being sexy doesn’t,” she said.

Dr. Tolman added that it is possible some women are using Halloween as a “safe space,” a time to play with sexuality. By taking it over the top, she said, they “make fun of this bill of goods that’s being sold to them.”

“Hey, if we can claim Halloween as a safe space to question these images being sold to us, I think that’s a great idea,” Dr. Tolman said.

But it may be only an idea. Or, more fittingly in this case, a fantasy.

“I love to imagine that there’s some real social message, that it’s sort of the female equivalent of doing drag,” Dr. Nelson said. “But I don’t think it’s necessarily so well thought out.”

Tanda Word, 26, a graduate student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, who wrote a satirical article about the trend for The Daily Toreador, agreed. “I think it’s damaging because it’s not just one night a year,” she said. “If it’s all the costume manufacturers make, I think it says something bigger about the culture as a whole.”

Salacious costumes — the most visible reminder that Halloween is no longer the sole domain of children — have been around longer than plastic Grim Reaper scythes. But there has been an emergence of “ultrasexy” costumes in the last couple of years, according to Christa Getz, the purchasing director for BuyCostumes.com, which sells outfits with names like Little Bo “Peep Show” and Miss Foul Play.

“Probably over 90 to 95 percent of our female costumes have a flirty edge to them,” Ms. Getz said, adding that sexy costumes are so popular the company had to break its “sexy” category into three subdivisions this year.

Heather Siegel, the vice president of HalloweenMart.com, said her company’s sexy category is among its most popular. (The two best- selling women’s costumes are a low-cut skin-tight referee uniform and a pinup-girl-inspired prisoner outfit called Jail Bait.)

“Almost everybody gets dressed up really, really sexy for it,” said Carrie Jean Bodner, a senior at Cornell University in Ithaca who wrote about the abundance of skimpy Halloween garb for The Cornell Daily Sun last year. “Even the girls who wouldn’t dream of going to class without their pearls and pullovers.”

Last year Ms. Bodner, 21, dressed up as a sexy pinch-hitter for an imaginary baseball team. This year she and her friends are considering being va-voom Girl Scouts.

Ms. Getz of BuyCostumes.com said far more women are buying revealing costumes than firing off indignant e-mail messages asking, “Why are all of your costumes so sexy?” (though some do).

Still, women may be buying racy outfits because that is all that is available. Ms. Getz said she wished there were more sexy men’s costumes on the market and that the lack of them is but further evidence of the gender double standard. “It’s just not as socially acceptable,” she said, adding that men feel comfortable expressing themselves with Halloween costumes that are “either crude or outrageous or obnoxious.”

Ms. Siegel of HalloweenMart.com said the costume industry is merely mirroring the fashion industry, where women have more variety in their wardrobes. Besides, she said, men are less interested in accessorizing. “They’re happy grabbing a mask and a robe and being done,” she said.

At least they get a robe. Ms. Bodner of Cornell estimated that it will be about 30 degrees in Ithaca on Oct. 31.

“We’re not just risking our dignity here,” she said. “We’re risking frostbite.”

F*cking Progressives: American Apparel wants you to bend over for its anti-sweatshop schtick
By KEELY SAVOIE

Clamor Magazine
Issue 28, Fall 2006

With the arrival of American Apparel in Park Slope, Brooklyn’s stalwartly anti-chain-store neighborhood, the trip up gritty, traffic-clogged Flatbush Avenue now culminates in the lusciously moist, open mouth of a Lauren W. Her tongue flirts with her fingers through parted lips, and it looks as though she’s inviting us to taste the same quintessential flavor of American Apparel she appears to be savoring: CEO Dov Charney.

American Apparel ads have become their own pop-culture entity. At first sight, they excited something in ad-watchers and media-thinkers. The ads seemed new, edgy, smart, and real. They feature very young women (and some girls under 15, if rumors are true) who are unpolished, un-retouched, and hyper-sexualized. The camera-eye leers at crotch level, focusing where flesh disappears under thin cotton fabric, lingering on bruised thighs, scratched buttocks, stubbly armpits. It lurks above the tawny-skinned, thin models who are lolling about on tousled sheets, propped against door jambs, bent over plastic crates, or sprawled on cheap couches. The camera’s lens becomes a proto-phallus, as if you are seeing a photographic rendition of a horny boy’s favorite sexual fantasy. It’s not a far stretch; Dov Charney is listed as the “artist” in many of the photo montages on the American Apparel website. In Lauren W’s slideshow, she is shot from the shoulders up against the backdrop of a pillow. In excruciatingly close views, we are taken through a series of her facial expressions of lust, sexual excitement, orgasmic ecstasy, and coy satiation. In one of the final shots, a male hand reaches down from behind the camera, and touches her chin.

“Dov’s whole thing [is about] humiliating women . . . not letting them be strong and in control – always [appearing] vulnerable,” says Adam Neiman, CEO of No Sweat Apparel, AA’s main anti-sweatshop (and pro-union) T-shirt-and-tank-top competitor.

These are the ads that took American Apparel from being unknown to becoming almost as much of an urban fixture as Starbucks – that’s what we’ve been told. At first the ads were a welcome departure from the air-brushed anorexic tyranny of most Madison Avenue “sex sells” fare, but under the surface of the too-close, Polaroid-candid, spots-and-all realism was the same ol’ same ol’: “Sexual expression co-opted by capitalism,” as Jean Kilbourne, author of Can’t Buy My Love and ad-critic extraordinaire, puts it.

The images of super-young models prostrated in positions of hyper-sexual vulnerability are reminiscent of a Calvin Klein advertising controversy of a decade ago, in which pubescent teens were deliberately posed to evoke that bastion of ’60s sleaze, rec-room pornography. Unsurprisingly, the CK ads generated immense controversy, which of course translated to immense profits.

By the same token, American Apparel ads recall the “classic” ’70s images from Hustler magazine, which also adorn the walls of their retail stores. Predictably, the smarmy AA ads have generated considerable buzz that has facilitated American Apparel’s ascendancy. But American Apparel did CK one better. The edginess of the ads garnered the headlines, but the topper – the piece de resistance for Charney’s target demographic – appeared further down in almost every single article ever written about American Apparel: the parenthetical appeal of AA’s anti-sweatshop schtick.

It was the seemingly incompatible combination that really launched AA from obscurity to ubiquity within a couple of years of opening their first retail store. Therein lies the genius of the marketing strategy of American Apparel. They know sex sells, but free press with a progressive twist sells a whole lot more.

The real story of American Apparel’s ads is how the company has used the bodies of its barely legal employees to shore up its appeal to the progressive left by implanting anti-sweatshop shtick into every article generated by its low-budget, sexist ads. And the AA demographic – low-wage-worker-defending (but high-wage-earning), guilt-ridden lefties who want nothing more than to assuage their own angst-ridden middle-class anxiety about having succeeded in the capitalist world by consuming with conscience (and the more conscience, the better: sweat-free, fair-trade, organic, vegan, and sustainable) – ate it up.

“He [is] basically telling the left on one hand, ‘Yeah, you’re making me work,’” says Neiman. “On the other, [he’s saying], ‘Kiss my hairy bare butt.’”

American Apparel’s fame as an anti-sweatshop hero company is rooted not in ideology, but in the cut-throat clothing industry. Charney had just opened American Apparel’s first retail store in downtown L.A. when he learned that another T-shirt-and-tank-top outfitter, the late SweatX, aimed to open a retail outlet right next door. “He saw a threat from SweatX, so all of a sudden he realized that there was press – lots of it – so he played that angle,” says Neiman.

“Dov had never shown any interest up to this time in the sweatshop issue whatsoever,” Neiman says. “It was all about sex – sexy tees, sexy tees, sexy tees – was it.” Sex is still the central concern for Charney. Wherever Charney goes, rumors and insinuations follow. Stories about workplace nudity, inappropriate come-ons, and outright sexual harassment seem to sprout out of Charney.

But it’s also a whole lot more than just sex. It is the cynical positioning of those female bodies over a backdrop of progressive causes, an incomplete and cognitively dissonant seduction that seems, nonetheless, to have worked well enough that almost every shirt I’m tempted to buy has that tell-tale three-circle logo of American Apparel. And no wonder: American Apparel is, ironically, the brand of choice for any number of progressive organizations who decide to do a little T-shirt marketing.

“It always astonishes me when people who consider themselves progressive fall for this,” says Kilbourne.

[just FYI, here are some more very interesting reads on american apparel:
American Apparel: Trading sweatshops for sexism
American Apparel, LLC
~nas]

Posted by naseem at October 24, 2006 08:26 AM