Author Archives: margotmagowan

Why ChapStick’s bad PR policy matters

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Yesterday,  Jezebel and Business Insider posted about ChapStick’s bad PR policy to delete negative feedback about its ad from its Facebook page– an especially questionable practice by ChapStick when its ad copy reads: “Be Heard” and follows with a Facebook page address.

As Jezebel wrote, ChapStick’s practice of deleting negative feedback is not officially censorship:

“Chapstick has no obligation to provide a public forum, and users are free to take their complaints elsewhere, as they have done.”

Last I looked, it appears ChapStick is now deleting the blatantly sexist comments as well, which I guess could be considered progress. But again, the ad implies a public forum. Furthermore, ironically, leaving up the sexist comments about the woman’s ass show that the picture is not just an innocent snapshot of a woman looking for ChapStick, that others besides crazy feminists bloggers find the ad objectifying, though obviously they’re into the objectification.

Jezebel writes:

What Chapstick is guilty of is really bad PR. When Dr. Pepper issued a much more objectionable ad, at least they allowed customers to sound off about it on their Facebook page. By deleting negative comments, Chapstick is sending the message that they can’t handle criticism. And especially if you’re encouraging people to use social media to talk about your brand, that’s a stupid message to send.

Business Insider agrees:

Social media is supposed to be a way to communicate with your customers — when you shut that channel down simply because they disagree with you, you totally negate the point of having it in the first place.

Deleting those comments served no purpose for Chapstick but to cause itself PR problems. It’s the Internet — even if you delete something, it’ll appear somewhere, somehow. True to form, many of the comments that Chapstick deleted were compiled by protesters on a new Facebook page (the screenshots show that most were void of profanity and civil).

What should Chapstick have done?

Brands like Chapstick have to learn to accept the negative with the positive, especially in a world with social media. By simply opening a dialogue with those angered and listening to their complaint, this could’ve been avoided. And the folks at Chapstick would’ve generated some goodwill, showing that they actually give a crap about what people think.

But no. They did the exact opposite, giving the perception that the brand doesn’t care.

One follower of the Butt Seriously, Chapstick FB page (created by Reel Girl for those deleted from ChapStick’s page) had a great suggestion that ChapStick show women in its ads being powerful and resourceful, for example lifting up the couch and finding the ChapStick there.

Obviously, this isn’t an earthshaking issue, but it is a striking glimpse into how corporations work behind the scenes to control their public message. And it’s disturbing to see that kind of manipulation operate under the guise of a public forum. The tactic is relevant to girls and women because so often with sexist products– movies that star only boys, the ubiquity of pink and Barbie dolls– the justification for the limited options out there is “we’re just giving the people what they want.” Clearly, there’s more going on in the background involving complex and elaborate marketing strategies. If you’re claiming to give us what we want, you ought to at least listen to what we have to say first.

Through this whole experience, I have learned how to spell ChapStick correctly.

Butt seriously, Chapstick

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After Melissa Spiers posted on Chapstick’s offensive ad, she and many other readers tried to comment on Chapstick’s FB page as invited to in the ad. “BE HEARD,” Chapstick’s ad copy reads, yet all the comments readers made were mysteriously deleted within minutes.

So we’ve created “Butt seriously, Chapstick,” exclusively for those not allowed on Chapstick’s page. Please click like and be heard.

Hopefully, they’ll get it in the end.

7 yr old girl becomes youngest person to swim length of Golden Gate Bridge

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This kid is amazing!

Ella Woodhead got in the freezing water and strong currents of the San Francisco Bay and swum a full mile. Her mother swam by her side.

“It was really cold, but I had a wetsuit on so I felt a bit warmer,” a bleary-eyed Ella said Friday morning. “I thought about warm and happy things, warm showers and hot chocolate.”

Woodhead is raising money for her preschool teacher whose husband was killed just before she was due to get a mastectomy. Now Tika Hick is recovering at home with her 9 month old son.

To make a donation to the charity supporting Tika Hick, go to welovetika.com/donate-now.

Read the full story on Ella Woodhead here.

SF architects’ advice to girls: Blocks, not Barbie

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After I posted about Mattel’s new Architect Barbie supposedly designed to inspire girls to become architects, AIA SF invited me to hear a panel discussion: “Ladies (and Gents) Who Lunch with Architect Barbie.” The topic was women and architecture, and it quickly became apparent how the highly successful female architects felt about the infamous doll.

“Maybe if there were an Interior Design Ken,” said Ila Berman, director of Architecture at California College of the Arts and principal of Studio Matrixx. “Or if she were Contractor Barbie and wore a hard hat and held a computer. If she were more subversive, maybe I could go there.” Berman nodded at the doll placed in front of the panelists.  “She makes me nervous.”

Cathy Simon, best known locally for transforming San Francisco’s decrepit Ferry Building into a thriving, open marketplace, was more direct: “Barbie is an embarrassment for women. I’m embarrassed for her. I hate Barbie.”

Anne Tourney, an award winning architect and principal at Daniel Solomon Design Partners, was practical about Barbie’s potential: “Mattel can’t represent us. It’s a toy company.”

EB Min who has her own firm and also a three year old daughter defended the doll slightly, conceding that perhaps she “normalizes the career.”

All of the architects wanted to shift the discussion away from Barbie and to real life women and architecture. As in most professions, women have made huge gains at the bottom. In the 1970s, just 5% of architecture students were women. Today, the number has climbed to 40 – 45%. Of those women, only  17% get licensed and join the AIA. Few make it to principal in their firm or tenured faculty at prestigious universities.

The panel agreed the challenge for women in architecture is retention. Sticking with it in a tough economy, somehow navigating the Catch 22 when top jobs and top salaries go to men.

Berman, who, as she said, “wasn’t that old,”  was the first female tenured in architecture at Tulane.  Today, just 20% of the tenure track positions in architecture go to women. Who gets tenure? “It’s a cloning activity,” she said. “A peer review process.”

How do you succeed and keep the faith with those odds? Simon encouraged the young female architects in the crowd (only three men showed up to the talk) to believe in themselves. “You can do anything,” she said. Better than words, she inspired the women by her own example, as did the whole panel. Clearly, the speakers were passionate about their work and fulfilled financially and creatively. Two spoke of fathers who strongly encouraged them to go into architecture.

Because I write about girls and toys, I brought up Architecture Barbie one more time. “Could she possibly be a gateway to get girls to imagine? You could ask your daughter: what’s she going to build today?”

“I played with blocks,” said Berman. “I loved puzzles. Get your daughters some puzzles.”

Can you imagine not being able to cry?

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Bay Area domestic violence direct service workers convened yesterday at the Ivory Steuben luncheon to discuss the worldwide epidemic and what we can do about it in our community.

The panel of direct responders included Dr. Catherine Main, a therapist in Marin County, Julie Robbins MSW, ACSW, LCSW in SF, Rabbi Sydney Mintz of Temple Emanu-el, and Jill Zawisza of Women, Inc.

Catherine Main spoke about how her goal is to help people to identify DV earlier. The sooner it can be recognized, the more chance we have to stop and change the behavior. She said the beginning is subtle. Typically, it starts with intimidating behavior from the male in the family. He begins to withdraw emotionally, soon exhibiting signs of jealously. The next step is that he restricts the woman’s movement and friendships so she becomes more isolated and more dependent on him.

Julie Robbins began her talk saying she was happy to be with this crowd because the worst part of her job is all the time she’s got to spend just convincing people that the problem actually exists. She said it’s our job as a community to make it visible. Here are some stats:

One in four women (25%) has experienced domestic violence in her lifetime.

85% of domestic violence victims are women.

Women ages 20-24 are at the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence.

Nearly three out of four (74%) of Americans personally know someone who is or has been a victim of domestic violence.

On average, more than three women are murdered by their intimate partners in this country every day.

Domestic violence is one of the most chronically under reported crimes.

Only approximately one-quarter of all physical assaults, one-fifth of all rapes, and one-half of all stalkings perpetuated against females by intimate partners are reported to the police.

On a positive note, Robbins said that kids who grow up in violent homes can and do get better. She’s seen it. One of the best things about getting older, she said, is seeing a three year old survivor she played with on her office floor all grown up, stopping by to visit her with his new wife. The cycle can be broken, but just as with  other family epidemics like alcoholism, the disease is inter-generational. Everyone is affected. Repair takes time. The first step is recognition.

So how do we break the cycle?

Robbins summarized what happens to a kids in a DV home. A home is supposed to be the safest and most secure place in the world. How do kids deal with the fact that someone they love is hurting someone else they love? How do their developing brains process all the contradictory information? Robbins says kids decide it must be their fault as a coping mechanism. The kid thinks if he can be perfect, he can keep the chronic abuse from happening. Robbins spoke about how these kids become so hyper-vigilant they know when the violence is going to happen. They can recognize signs like hearing a car pulling into a driveway crooked. Kids who have been abused or around abuse have brains that get wired up that are hyper-vigilant and hyper intuitive– they hear, smell, and taste differently.

Rabbi Mintz talked about the caveman model– the cave guy whacks the woman on the head and drags her back to the cave. The rabbi said it may be a cartoon but that this is the model for the first relationship. I like what she said because I write about cartoons. Listening to her, I thought again about the lack of healthy role models for men and women out there. It was also great to hear the rabbi because she called the group to a higher level of action than we are used to. Listening, it almost made me wish I were religious so I would hear these kinds of words more often or more regularly. The rabbi believes we are all first responders. She also said she’s got a kid in her congregation who had just been picked up by Child Protective Services. She wants to know who in her community is going to take this kid in? Who of the Temple Emanu-el families will step forward?

Again, calling individuals to action, the rabbi also spoke about a fundraiser for the public schools where one of the donors said: “The best thing you can do right now is write a check.” The rabbi told us that’s not the best thing you can do. The best thing you can do is send your kid to a public school. Then write checks to that school and get involved in the community there.

Eve Ensler’s talk was amazing and I already posted about part of it, but I didn’t mention yet that she also talked quite a bit about men. Ensler said that in order to stop violence against women, we must include men in the movement. Men need to be able to stand up and say violence against women is wrong. She told a story about getting in a cab in New York and forgetting her wallet. When she realized she had no money, she said, “I’m so sorry. You can take me back home and I can get it or I can mail you a check.”

The driver was furious, screaming at her, shouting, calling her names. Ensler said she saw a man in horrible pain, a man who got no recognition for his work, a man who was angry about sitting in New York traffic, a man who was tired and frustrated. Ensler said that we have no idea the kind of pressure men are under to perform, to please everybody, feeling they are coming up short, feeling they can’t do everything right. She said, “Can you imagine not being able to cry? You cry, you go on, you cry, you go on. If I couldn’t cry, I would’ve been institutionalized fifty years ago.”

Eve Ensler speaks to SF community leaders about stopping violence against women

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Yesterday, award-winning writer and activist Eve Ensler spoke to Bay Area domestic violence direct service workers about how to end violence against women. She spoke at the Ivory Steuben luncheon which is organized by Marjorie Swig and named for a survivor of domestic violence.

Ensler had just come from the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York and she spoke about how economic issues are inseparable from stopping violence against women: girls around the world are sold into sex trafficking for less money than the cost of a cell phone; women economically dependent on their partners can’t afford to leave abusive relationships; in Topeka, Kansas, after a 10% budget cut, the DA’s office announced it would decriminalize DV, no longer wasting money prosecuting that misdemeanor. THIS IS HAPPENING IN THE USA.

Ensler said stopping violence against women cannot continue to be our last priority, it has to be our first. Violence against women is inter-related to every issue: health, economy, education, politics, foreign policy.

Other community leaders at the event spoke about how no SF mayoral candidates had put DV in their written platforms. Chris Cunnie who is running for Sheriff was at the event and spoke about his commitment to stop violence against women. He’ll have my vote.

I’ll post more news from the event soon.

Chapstick sticks it to women by Melissa Spiers, guest post

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I have never been to Farmville or Café World or CityWhatever so I have no idea how they work.  But I want to create my own online universe.  It will be a museum, no, it will be a whole village: an online world ‘housing’ the vast collection of media messages that are degrading to women. Hey look, a picture of a woman’s ass.  Members could live in the various apartments, museums, cafes, stores, theaters, and schools where women are sold, displayed, minimized, belittled, objectified …or are just plain missing. Oh, she lost her Chapstick. And they could do their, whatever they do in online universes – work, farm, drink, eat, chat.

Of course, such a collection could only exist online, because there isn’t a building big enough to hold the real accumulation.

Welcome to the Visitor’s Center!  Upstairs is the Liquor Advertisements Wing.  I wonder where she lost it? Across the street, the Music Lyrics building.  And adjacent to that, the Movies and Television compound.

No, wait.  I will organize it according to degradation type instead of media type.  On this street we have the planned housing development of “Women Licking Objects.”   Whoa! Check out her ass! Over here, the ghost town of “Missing: Significant Roles for Women” (which includes, of course, the government buildings, churches, big business boardrooms, and TV & movie studios.)  Gosh, where IS that lost Chapstick?  And of course the shopping mall of “Fetishized Female Body Parts.” Yes, my village will reach to the horizon in every direction, a whole city of buildings filled with sexist advertising, music, books, movies and media of every kind. 

But why would anyone visit my online world, anyway?  Don’t we go online to experience an alternate reality? Chapstick! Woman’s Ass!  Have you ever gone through a day without being bombarded with any sexist messages or images?  Some of them are right out there, nothing subliminal about them  – see exhibits A through Z on the Rap Lyrics floor.  Lost. Chapstick. Ass. Others try to be subtle and sneaky (please take the audio tour in the Museum of Advertising).  Unfortunately, the use of women’s bodies to sell everything from beer to books has become so pervasive that we almost don’t see it anymore.  Hey, I bet I know where the Chapstick is!

So when we see it – what do we do about it? Well, I would encourage you to take Chapstick up on their bold-print offer to “Be Heard at Facebook.com/chapstick” except I’ve tried that: they delete any comments even remotely questioning or critical.  Hmmmm.  What asses.

Because Chapstick continues to delete our comments, Reel Girl started another FB page Butt seriously, Chapstick. Please visit and be heard.

Read Melissa Spiers’ follow-up to the ChapStick controversy:  No Comment! A Commentary on the ChapStick Story

New study reports only 10% of boys feel beautiful

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I made that headline up, because sometimes it’s hard to realize how deep sexism goes. It’s a weird headline, right?

I recently posted on stats from Dove that only 11% of girls are comfortable calling themselves beautiful. But just asking that question shows a distorted view of female worth mangled in the language of beauty.

I wrote in my post that “feeling beautiful has come to mean feeling good: comfortable, powerful, competent.” But that doesn’t go far enough.

Years ago, getting better from an eating disorder, I had to learn to decode what “feeling fat” really meant. It was like becoming bilingual. Fat is not a feeling, I was told. It’s not? Thin isn’t a feeling either. Who knew? Fat, I finally learned, stood in for all kinds of emotions including anxiety, shame, panic, hopelessness, on and on. Thin included feeling excited, inspired, or happy.

I remember how in the 80s, Gloria Gaynor’s hit “I Will Survive” was supposed to be this anthem of female independence. But I couldn’t imagine a man belting that out and feeling empowered (do men even get “empowered”?). It would be funny, right? Or I think of all the modern day princess movies where the protagonist is so independent she actually chooses who to marry but the whole movie is still all about marriage. Or, as I wrote about the movie “Ratatouille,” the female chef is given a monologue where she complains about sexism but the cartoon itself had no female star. When the framework itself is sexist, it’s practically impossible to break out of the dogma because you’re trapped inside of it. Studies like Dove’s are important because they show the trap but they don’t point the way out.

Last night, my daughter drew two princesses, and she said, “There’s a brave one and a pretty one.” (The princesses, by the way, looked exactly the same.)

I said, “Honey, can’t the brave one be pretty too? Being brave makes her pretty.” Which is the case with men, their attributes make them attractive. But of course, that’s all too cerebral for a 5 year old so I told her a story instead (about a brave princess, loved and admired by all.) I keep thinking that’s the best way to change the world.

Only 11% of girls comfortable using the word “beautiful” to describe themselves.

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Dove reports that according to its global research, only 11% of girls worldwide are comfortable using the word “beautiful” to describe themselves.  Even worse, when girls feel bad about their looks, more than 70% avoid normal daily activities, such as attending school, going to the doctor, or even giving their opinion.

Feeling “beautiful” has come to mean feeling good: comfortable, powerful, competent.

Girls learn very young that the main way they have value and interact with the world is through their appearance. We can do a better job intervening.

Here are some tips on what you can do right now.

Small talk

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I know making small talk with a two year old is hard. Toddlers can be shy, are easily distracted, and might even burst into tears if you say the wrong thing. It’s not easy to break the ice. But please: if you meet a little girl on the street, in a store, on the playground,  try to think of something, anything to say rather than commenting on her hair, dress, shoes, eyes etc.

My two year old just started preschool, and by the time I’ve kissed her good bye and left in her in the classroom, she’s gotten about 10 compliments on her appearance. Of course, she’s adorable. All little kids are. But remember, their little brains are getting wired up. Kids love attention, to be smiled at, and to connect– these are exactly the kinds of interactions that make their brains grow. When they learn, this young, that so many responses are based on how they look, it affects them for life.

For alternative ice breakers try “Hi, you seem happy today! What’s going on? (or sad or angry)” or “Is that your kitty? (or bunny, dog) What’s her name?” Talk about the weather, seriously. Ask if they come here often. If you must say something to a little girl about how she looks, balance it out with other topics that have nothing to do with her appearance (meaning don’t talk about how she looks unless this is going to be a long interaction.)

When people tell your daughter how pretty she is, don’t repeat the compliment to her (as in “She loves this dress. It’s her favorite.”) Don’t make her say thank you. Gently deflect the topic. No matter what other people say, you’re the parent whose opinion matters most to her at this age. Do tell your daughters they are beautiful “on the inside and the outside.” It’s something that should be said by you and that she feels confident about. It’s the proportion of looks based comments, the constant repetition of them, and how they form the basis for social interaction that’s damaging.