One person says: outrageous! Another says: meh…..
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Not everyone is outraged about the same things. Have you noticed? And that’s how arguments start. Because when you ARE outraged about something, you generally think those who don’t share your outrage are complacent fools. And when something DOESN’T push your outrage buttons, you tend to think those who are banging on about it are a pack of shouty, whinging killjoys.
See? That’s why I tend to steer away from angry posts on Mamamia and why Amanda Bugmum is such a genius when it comes to moderating comments and spreading lovely soothing nappy-rash cream over any angry red bits that occasionally pop up around here.
Still. Ever since this happened, I’ve found myself inadvertently Captain Of the T-Shirts-That-Piss-People-Off-Club. This is unfortunate because I like t-shirts. However, not a week goes by when I don’t receive an email or link from someone who has seen a t-shirt or an advertisement with a slogan they find offensive, exhorting me to expose this shop or that fashion label.
The thing is, I don’t feel outraged about everything. Really, I don’t. I know there are some people who do and some people who are looking for a receptacle for their outrage but they won’t find it here and I won’t do their bidding. If something truly offends or upsets me – like the Cotton On baby clothes did – then I will speak up but I can’t fake it. And, more importantly, I don’t want Mamamia to become an angry, outraged place. It’s important we discuss issues and I am committed to doing that but that doesn’t mean clambering up on a soapbox every five minutes.
But if you are outraged or offended by something, this might be of interest to you. Melinda Tankard Reist is a Canberra author of the book Getting Real: Challenging The Sexualisation Of Girls and she is very outraged about that particular subject.
While I do share some of her concerns, by no mean do we agree on all issues. In fact we strongly disagree on a number of very important issues. I can’t overstate that.
Melinda has recently launched a new organisation called Collective Shout to bring people who are outraged about particular things together. Here, she answers some questions about it:
You broke the Roger David t-shirt story and exposed some heinous pro-rape t-shirts recently. How did that play out?
Roger David t-shirt
The response was overwhelming. A number of women sent images of the Roger David t.shirts to me. I decided to blog on the t.shirts, and how the objectification of women and pimp culture had gone mainstream. (I mean, my dad buys his shirts at Roger David!) It has become almost chic to market images of women being hurt or slogans mocking their harm.
For some time I’d included in my talks some pro-rape t.shirts so I decided to include them in the blog as well to show how bad things are. I found one I hadn’t seen before, “It’s not rape if you yell surprise” and discovered an Australian company was involved so I included that.
The blog attracted 16,000 hits in a few days, 8000 on the day I posted it. In three days, 3,500 people signed up to a facebook site against the t.shirts. The most profoundly affecting comments were from sexual assault survivors who said that these t.shirts were a form of mental torture. The slogans send a message that rape was just a bit of fun. Many described the t.shirts as ‘hate speech’ inciting crimes of violence against women and girls. Some wrote about how seeing the t.shirts triggered memories of their sexual assault, re-victimising them. One colleague had to step back from the campaign because the abusive comments posted in the blog forum were too distressing.
I wonder if the creators of these shirts thought about the effect they may have on women like this, but then they probably don’t care. Abuse is, like, so hot right now. As for a response from Roger David, we didn’t get one.
How did Collective Shout come about?
Collective Shout came about as a result of a comment from Melbourne writer and blogger Tania Andrusiak (author of Adproofing Your Kids: Raising critical thinkers in a media-saturated world) who contributed a chapter to Getting Real. She described the book as a ‘collective shout against the pornification of culture.’ I like the term so much I thought it deserved an organisation! I also felt it was time to harness the momentum that had been building over the last couple of the hears, into a strategic organised campaign. So I headhunted some brilliant women to work with me to get it going and some other women who had wanted to see something like this happen for a long time came out of the woodwork to join us. We only met as a group for the first time in December and Collective Shout has just moved ahead at a rapid pace since then. The website has just gone up: www.collectiveshout.org
Collective Shout will expose, name and shame corporations, advertisers, marketers and media who objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products and services. It will run primarily through the website providing a description of the offending company, the offending product or service and then giving those concerned the tools for action – specifics on how to make a complaint. So many people say they want to complain but that the system is difficult to navigate. So we’ll show them how to do it. The aim is to help people recognise they do have a voice and a right to make their feelings known.
Another benefit of Collective Shout is that it is a central point to connect “shouters”. Advocacy can be a lonely exercise, especially when it seems to land on deaf ears or its value is undermined or trivialised. This is an opportunity for individual campaigners to have access to a network of like-minded activists who are equally concerned about the pornification of our culture.
Who will it target?
Corporations, advertisers, marketers, media who objectify women and sexualise girls to make money (which means we’ll be busy!). We’ll be telling them that if you are going to use the bodies of women and girls to sell your stuff in a way that objectifies, degrades, or exploits, you’ll be hearing from us. You will see your advertising on our site – reproduced, taken apart piece by piece to expose its negative messages. We’ll have a graffiti board where budding graffiti artists will ‘re-face’ your billboards and other ads. Thousands of people will be educated about how dodgy you are and will want to avoid you. Young people will log on and tell their friends at school. People will be telling others, they will be equipped to communicate what you’ve done. Who knows, you might also feature at an awards night for the most objectifying/ sexualising ad.
What about the argument that says “Lighten up, it’s just a t-shirt!” or claims that this is political correctness gone mad?
This isn’t about being “politically correct”. It is about naming and identifying the ways that women and girls are represented as sexualised, subordinate and submissive. Those with vested interests in defending the status quo – and their entitlements – are the ones who try to dismiss women’s concerns. Free speech shouldn’t mean speech (including images, representations) which cause harm to women and girls. And research tells us that objectifying women and sexualising girls leads to harm against them. In a society where we value “freedom of speech”, we need to ask why people constantly choose to use this freedom to speak harm into women’s lives. Is “speech” aimed at degrading women and poking fun at sexual assault really an expression of freedom?
We won’t be dismissed with simplistic labels put on us by those who don’t want to engage the arguments.
What do you think? Have we become too quick to cry ‘sexualisation’ when it comes to images of girls and women or do you feel under siege by why popular culture exposes you to?
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A model contest that’s superficial? No! I’m shocked.
I am a mom of two young children and a clothing manufacturer in the United States. I own Pigtail Pals, which is an empowering line of t-shirts for young girls. (www.pigtailpals.com) I was involved with the Roger David campaign from the get-go because of its vulgarity and complicity with violence towards women. I have refused from Day 1 of my business to not use American Apparel. The use of under-age looking models in sexually explicit poses and constant reports of sexual harassment from management at American Apparel had me immediately crossing them off my list of vendors. I feel it would be hypocritical to the message I am trying to send to girls: the world needs to change the way we think about our girls.
Companies like Roger David and American Apparel do a great amount of harm – both to women and men. There is never a time when it is appropriate for society to condone the belittlement and exploitation of a group of people, whether it be race, religion, ethnicity or gender. As conscientious members of society, it is our obligation to boycott such companies.
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Thanks Missamoo, will give it a look.
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With respect Ellie, I think you’re getting bogged down in semantics. “Particular things” referred to particular images or campaigns or t-shirts that an individual might find offensive.
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there was a video clip a few years ago where all the girls wore super short skirts with visible g-strings on underneath. My daugher asked me why they all had wedgies…it was very cute and a cue for me to turn the tv off
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My haridresser smokes like a chimney. She cant wait to put my colour on so she can run out the back and have a puff. So I was pretty surprised – and angry with her – when she told me recently that she and her husband have been trying to have a baby for nearly 2 years without any luck so she is moving on to IVF.
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Totally agree with your first point Mia. Sometimes, I’m all like just chillax when you’re off venting about something or other and other times I just CAN NOT believe you aren’t blogging about something HUGE that has happened……
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Hate to burst your bubble, Mark – but I stopped buying anything that insulted my intelligence a looooong time ago.
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Mia, that doesn’t explain why you’ve painted a picture of people who are concerned about objectification and sexualisation as people who are “outraged” about “particular things.” I thought you were across all of these issues? It is very strange wording to use.
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i wholeheartedly agree with you there, Gig!
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Nah, it’s not that you’re naieve.
AA is big in the States, but not so much here. In the States, AA have been drumming up a storm with their advertising and offending a fair few people. It’s just that we don’t quite have the context here to measure this particular ‘tights’ image against.
If you’re interested, google ‘american apparel controversy’ and click through a few pages of results to get a context (you might have to turn off Safe Search – and be warned, it’s NSFW material).
I’d wager that most people familiar with AA get the play on words pretty much straight away.
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“advertiser’s”
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I must be very naive & not that adveritser’s target, b/c I didn’t get the ‘tight’ thing till just then…
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Totally agree with you, Anna. Problem is, not everyone agrees – as Mia highlights. Some people think it’s funny and edgy and subversive and cool – and want to express those aspects of themselves by buying and wearing this kind of stuff – or putting it on their kids, in the case of Cotton On.
What then? Whose freedoms to we respect? Those of people who do find it offensive or upsetting? Those who don’t? Those of the kids who have no idea what they’re wearing? Those of the parents who want to dress their kids as they see fit? Those of the retailers to sell the clothes – or the brands to create and market them?
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“But it’s not up to them is it? It’s up to us, yes”
You’re leaving something out there. The missing factor is advertising. Most magazines depend on advertising revenue, women’s magazines possibly more than others. And the influence & control which the advertisers exert over the ppresentation & content of women’s magazines is extremely strong.
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Melinda holds strident views about issues other than the sexalisation of young girls, such as abortion and some forms of contraception, and it is on these issues that we strongly disagree.
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I think we haven’t been quick enough, or loud enough when it comes to sexualisation. There are many feminist articles that point out that outdoor advertising, and this can translate to mass production of t- shirts, is not something we can avoid. It’s not radio when we can turn Kyle Sandilands off, or tv where we can change the channel. It’s made so its forced in our face while we do our every day jobs, going to work, taking kids to school, doing the shopping. And this constant bombardment of pictures normalises it all and sets it in the minds of the next generation that its OK. Well think about the ‘x’ rated images in the 1950s and then compare them to the ‘x’ rated images now, they’re getting worse and more explicited. Can you imaging another 60 years again? I wanted to find a tshirt for my partner as a gift and struggled to find one without a picture of a naked woman,a tied up woman, a sexist comment or a woman with an organisming face. I don’t want my partner as the billboard for that time of objectification, and if he was that kind of guy I’d leave. It’s not a fashion trend it’s a mentality. A sexist, objectifying mentality coming to a clothing store near you and you can wear it to keep in fashion and blend in
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Some advertising is brilliant, some is disgusting. When it comes to children, there is no excuse to cross the line, especially not for the sake of the bottom line. Same goes for scences of violence and crime on t-shirts. Its not cool, it’s not creative nor is it clever, it’s just stupid. Vote with your wallets, and dont let these types of items see the light of day.
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That’s probably worded in a way that’s a bit ruder than what i was thinking… But i am also curious about what things you agree with and what ones u don’t, Mia? this particular issue does seem to be one that u are normally advocating about.
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This, right here, is why i love this site. You guys have two opposite views, but instead of arguing about it, you’re sharing resources so u can discuss it properly.
I love Mamamia!
*Group hug*
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I love this idea, my mum and i make clothes for my nieces and nephews (her grandkids), and while we have a sense of humour most of the stuff is designed to look like kids clothes pure and simple. Meanwhile if you like whimsical fabric have you tried posie’s patchwork it’s an online fabric shop full of vintage prints I LOVE IT!!!!
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i totally agree re the kids clothes. When buying clothes for my 2.5 yo little girl I’m often so dismayed at the lack of generic clothes(ie no Dora, Disney, Dorothy etc etc), age-appropraite that are cheap and ok quality. I also HATE all the slogans – whether they be of the cutsie variety (My mummy loves me etc etc) or the plain nasty aka ‘cottonkids’ versions. love your idea – sorry no help re starting your fashion business. But i’d be a customer FOR SURE!
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“Men aren’t complaining about airbrushing”
I didn’t say they were and of course they are not caring because it’s the women that are getting airbrushed for them to enjoy.
“My point is that men don’t take these glossies seriously”
I think you might be surprised about how many that do. Men are just as prone to celebrity worship as females. Whether its a glamour model, porn star, or actress. They are not immune.
“Take ownership of the malaise you complain about.”
It’s not only womens magazines that use women in advertising though. I’m sure you can agree agree with that. That’s the point I’m trying to make. Female magazines make up a small proportion of that advertising market. So to suggest that if women stop buying fashion magazines then things will improve is not necessarily the case.
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Men aren’t complaining about airbrushing, whether it be male or female. My point is that men don’t take these glossies seriously, and as a result, don’t buy so many of them. It is women who buy, then demand to be taken seriously, then buy them again.
It’s like the Scotsman who, banging his head against a brick wall was asked, ‘why do you keep doing that’?
‘It feels so good when I stop.’
Perhaps stop buying and the market, as I said, generated by women, will dry up.
Us dumb blokes are too busy waiting for the next edition of ‘Ralph’. If it didn’t arrive, we’d just just use last month’s.
Take ownership of the malaise you complain about. It is not driven by men. We don’t, as a rule, buy Cosmo, Womens Weekly, New Idea et al.
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“they certainly should take responsibility for their product, just as the crass blokes at Ralph and the Picture (god luv ‘em) need to answer for the garbage they publish every week. ”
Agreed! However, I don’t see anyone asking them (mens magazine editors) to be responsible for their ridiculous amount of airbrushing, and sexualisation of women. The problem is because this medium is considered acceptable as it is known to be men’s “entertainment”. It was made to sexualise women. Yet womens mags get hauled over the coals for it constantly. I’m not defending them (cause I don’t read them), but it doesn’t seem entirely fair that one medium that portrays women in an unrealistic manner is constantly laden with criticism and another is not.
“Without wanting to create dissension between the sexes, men take such stereotyping in their stride. We recognise that we are a feeble gender driven by biological desires, we acknowledge this.”
Who says women aren’t also driven by biology? We too have desires and urges that we can’t resist. In my opinion I think women wouldn’t take it so seriously maybe if so much emphasis wasn’t placed on our looks. If we were recognised mainly for our character and accomplishments, but this just isn’t the case.
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does this mean you’ve hated everything else I’ve ever posted…..
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Shit Gig, I think i just agreed with you! Lol
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I love the book and hope to read it.
I don’t think I would join the cause as such because while I want to change things, I want to focus more on what I want rather than on getting mad at what i don’t want.
So, for me, that means attempting to make my daughters clothes by friends or myself. They look so much more beautiful in lovely fabrics and they actually look like children!
Encouraging creative imaginative play with my child and her friends that focus on make-believe or,what can we do with this cardboard.
I know this all sounds naff, there is more, but it sounds even more naff!
My pet hate is that target and Kmart which are great cheap places to buy clothes only stock gender stereotype stuff or everything has Dora on it! I would love a mass-produced cheap line what made kids look like kids. And Bonds is not that, they are OK, but I want a bit more whimsy in my line of fabric…..OK, now I just want someone to help me start a fashion line that is affordable for everyone so it can compete with Disney and be stocked for the masses…..Anyone?
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As for the sexualisation of women, ie over 18, I tend to agree with Mark. Approximately 50% of the population are female. What is the percentage of female staff at publications like Cosmo, Dolly and the rest of that lowbrow genre? It is a considerable percentage, and they certainly should take responsibility for their product, just as the crass blokes at Ralph and the Picture (god luv ‘em) need to answer for the garbage they publish every week.
But it’s not up to them is it?
It’s up to us, yes, Mia has acknowledged this before, but as long as copies of Cosmo continue to fly across the checkout at Woolies, it ain’t gonna stop. The sexualisation of women isn’t something foistered on women by men, it’s a syndrome that, on one hand women abbor, and on the other hand aspire to.
Without wanting to create dissension between the sexes, men take such stereotyping in their stride. We recognise that we are a feeble gender driven by biological desires, we acknowledge this. Those that go on to become rocket scientists will never dismiss the role that Playboy and Penthouse played in their upbringing. They also won’t tell you about their current subscription.
We know we are base animals, we may be portrayed in the media as, ie, that Beckham guy who kicks a ball and poses in his undies, but we really don’t give a toss about that. If Becks wants to be a wanker, who are we to care. The rocket scientist goes back to NASA, the footy guy goes to footy practise. We don’t take it seriously.
Neither do we take seriously women done up like Katie Price, or those other over-inflated, air-head excuses for a female partner. They may look good in this week’s Ralph magazine, but you wouldn’t take one home, would ya’.
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Agree – the point of the picture is to draw attention to her vulva. The word ‘tights’ is a play on ‘tight’, inferring that she is a tight lass, so to speak. AA has more than their fair share of pictures drawing attention to their models’ vulvas (is that the correct plural? I’ve never really had to think about it!) – it seems to be one defining feature of their advertising over the past few years. That, lots of crotch shots, and soft porn shots (Calvin Klein-style).
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Thanks Jane, you beat me to it. The Australia Institute’s paper is here Elisha:
https://www.tai.org.au/?q=node/9&pubid=969
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The T-shirt issue is clear cut. Don’t glorify illegal sex or violent crimes. Even more clear cut is don’t portray children in sexual, distasteful or socially unacceptable poses, scenarios or slogans. There is no ‘edge’ to this type of media/marketing, it is an abomination.
Don’t be afraid to express an opinion on this matter, in the media, in person. This is an outrage foisted on the majority of society by a perverse few aware of our liberal laws and intent on either self-gratification or monetary gain. Most likely both.
Given that we live in a diverse society today, one that restricts us from commenting openly on certain issues, ie, race, immigration, without being branded a zealot, it seems bizarre that we allow this muck to invade our senses and our lives with barely so much as a whimper.
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The T-shirt issue is clear cut. Don’t glorify illegal sex or violent crimes. Even more clear cut is don’t portray children or women in sexual, distasteful or socially unacceptable poses, scenarios or slogans. There is no ‘edge’ to this type of media/marketing, it is an abomination.
Don’t be afraid to express an opinion on this matter, in the media, in person. This is an outrage foisted on the majority of society by a perverse few aware of our liberal laws and intent on either self-gratification or monetary gain. Most likely both.
Given that we live in a diverse society today, one that restricts us from commenting openly on certain issues, ie, race, immigration, without being branded a zealot, it seems bizarre that we allow this muck to invade our senses and our lives with barely so much as a whimper.
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When I see the cover of cosmo and cleo in the supermarket I rarely see under 18 year old girls using sexual connotations and scantily clad on the cover. Usually it is celebrities and they are wearing the latest fashions. Are you sure your not confusing them with Ralph?!
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My main concern relates to Saturday morning musicc vids. I used to spend the morning dancing and singing along before going to tennis. My girls will not be allowed to enjoy the same due to the graphic nature of so many of them. This was brought home a few years ago at a friend’s engagement party where a group of 6-9 year olds had their turn on the karaoke machine singing and dancing (in a most inappropriateness manner) to “it’s getting hot in here”. Just not right that this seems normal to so many people.
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i have been exposed to that kind of ”humour’ for a long time now, being a mmorpg player (i don’t play much anymore but i can remember all thhe ‘fun’ that was going on) i think these shirts are in the same line of thought as the ”sapped girls can’t say no” type of jokes going around there. it’s not taken seriously and is seen as what teens call ”random” (lol) , which means: not even second degree…maybe fifth or more, it’s “absurd” humour. The fact that an adult person used this kind of humour and threw it in the streets where grown up women can see it, is a bit absurd itself, because as opportunist as it can be in the marketing field to take a teenage thing and spread it to the whole population, this particular thing IS going to be offensive , especially to rape victims and politically engaged women.Designers have been doing this for decades, but i doubt if this one will be good advertising for them…at least not in the grown up demography….
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I don’t think so at all. It’s as sexual as you want to make it. My eye was drawn to 1) wow interesting colour 2) wow she has muscular legs 3) that’s a really funny position…I wonder if it’s even possible…have they made it with two people?
I suppose this is an example of “one person’s outrage is another person’s so-what”. I think so what.
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Surely the problem is the emphasis on tight? The picture alone, whilst more graphic than required takes on a whole new form of inappropriateness.
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However Krissy – and Kudos to you for not buying the garbage – the girls on the cover of these mags are often Children – as in they are under 18 as many models are. So in reference to the sexualisation – it does, because they are using sexual connotations and a young woman scantly clad on the cover. You cant say the two are independent. I wasn’t suggesting that everyone here does, however you would be one of the few that wouldn’t have one of these lying around taking up coffee table space.
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“I bet everyone on this page has a Cosmo or Cleo in their house, home or office, and that means you can’t have an opinion against sexual advertising because your supporting it by buying magazines that have the word SEX pasted 50 times over a 16 year old girl in her “summer bikini body” on the cover”
Slow down there Mark… First, I think its a bit presumptuous to suggest that EVERYONE who reads this blog reads Cosmo or Cleo. The last time I personally bought a women’s mag was when I was 16 (OVER 10 YEARS AGO!). Second, just because the word SEX is pasted 50 times over in a womens magazine doesn’t mean immediate sexualisation. Unlike most mens mags female mags do offer sex advise and this is generally why its on the cover. Finally showing a female in her “summer bikini body” in a womens magazine means there is normally some reference to dieting or the latest summer fashions, its not a scheme to overtly sexualise the girl (just make everyone envious of her body!).
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My partner showed me a news article about this awhile ago and maybe cause I haven’t seen the t-shirt in person (only saw the photo accompanying the article) I couldn’t identify it as a “rape” t-shirt. To be honest I thought it was a shirt depicting a girl that couldn’t keep her mouth shut or something and needed to be gagged (still bad I know), mainly because she is fully clothed. Was there some text on the shirt or was it announced that it was a rape shirt? Sorry I’m just confused about how it was established this was a rape shirt. Can someone please enlighten me? I don’t know too much about it.
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