I’m sorry, but I’m confused… Yesterday I received an e-mail from you stating that you could not print my message of “Effing Luv U” on my personalized order for a Valentine’s gift for my husband due to the “family-nature of your brand.” But the family-nature of your brand supports advertisement such as this!? MY order was for my husband only, not an advertisement for millions to see.
An adult woman is not permitted to send a sexually suggestive message to her husband, but this ad is appropriate for the ‘family-nature’ of the M & Ms brand?
Or this?
Or this?
Or this?
M&Ms’ hypocrisy reminds me of Miss America contestants getting punished when nude photographs are discovered, public breast-feeding banned as obscene, or Howard Stern complaining about Lena Dunham’s nudity on “Girls.” Sexuality is widely accepted in our culture in specific and contrived ways that are often degrading to women. Selling gender stereotypes to kids is what a “family-brand” should refuse to do.
If you’re going to argue that kids aren’t the market, children are attracted to animation. You can debate whether that’s natural, conditioning, or a mix of both, but anyone who has a child knows her eyes go to cartoon characters like a magnet. That’s why the U.S. government banned Joe Camel.
If a company is going to use cartoon characters to sell products, not to mention a self-described “family brand” whose product is candy, it shouldn’t promote sexism in its advertising.That’s bad for kids. This mom won’t be buying any more M & Ms. I hope you join me.
When tobacco companies used a cartoon camel to sell cigarettes to kids, the U.S. government stepped in to stop the manipulation.
When M & Ms uses extreme gender stereotypes to sell sexism to kids, it’s supposed to be funny. Here’s the back cover of the 2013 swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated.
If M & Ms used a marketing campaign based on racial stereotypes, would we think it was funny? Apparently not. There’s an uproar about SI using people of color from all around the world as fashion props. That’s offensive and gross and so is this: Ms. Green getting stalked ha ha ha.
Eve Ensler is the founder of V-Day and One Billion Rising, movements to end violence against women. End it. That’s exactly how Ensler thinks, and that’s why she is one of my heroes.
Here’s info about One Billion Rising:
ONE IN THREE WOMEN ON THE PLANET WILL BE RAPED OR BEATEN IN HER LIFETIME.
ONE BILLION WOMEN VIOLATED IS AN ATROCITY
ONE BILLION WOMEN DANCING IS A REVOLUTION
On V-Day’s 15th Anniversary, 14 February 2013, we are inviting ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence. ONE BILLION RISING will move the earth, activating women and men across every country. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders.
What does ONE BILLION look like? On 14 February 2013, it will look like a REVOLUTION.
Driving my three daughters to school this morning, I heard Ensler on the radio talkingabout her journeys around the world to record stories from women about the invisible but widespread violence that so many people continue to ignore. Ensler said that in the U.S., people always ask her if she gets overwhelmed. She said (paraphrasing here to the best of my memory): “Of course I get overwhelmed. You should get overwhelmed! Are we so fragile, that we are afraid to feel? If you can’t feel, you cant act, and you can’t change.”
It reminded me of something I read recently, that humans are designed to experience emotions. Our bodies– without the controlling interferences so many of us use like drugs, food, or staying stuck in our heads– are designed to experience emotions in waves. They crest and then they recede. It’s what our anatomy is set up for. They don’t kill us, we survive. What would happen if we stopped being so afraid to feel? How do you think our world would change?
Here’s an excerpt from Ensler’s latest book, I Am an Emotional Creature.
I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE
“I love being a girl.
I can feel what you’re feeling
as you’re feeling it inside
the feeling
before.
I am an emotional creature.
Things do not come to me
as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas.
They pulse through my organs and legs
and burn up my ears.
I know when your girlfriend’s really pissed off
even though she appears to give you what
you want.
I know when a storm is coming.
I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air.
I can tell you he won’t call back.
It’s a vibe I share.
I am an emotional creature.
I love that I do not take things lightly.
Everything is intense to me.
The way I walk in the street.
The way my mother wakes me up.
The way I hear bad news.
The way it’s unbearable when I lose.
I am an emotional creature.
I am connected to everything and everyone.
I was born like that.
Don’t you dare say all negative that it’s a
teenage thing
or it’s only only because I’m a girl.
These feelings make me better.
They make me ready.
They make me present.
They make me strong.
I am an emotional creature.
There is a particular way of knowing.
It’s like the older women somehow forgot.
I rejoice that it’s still in my body.
I know when the coconut’s about to fall.
I know that we’ve pushed the earth too far.
I know my father isn’t coming back.
That no one’s prepared for the fire.
I know that lipstick means
more than show.
I know that boys feel super-insecure
and so-called terrorists are made, not born.
I know that one kiss can take
away all my decision-making ability
and sometimes, you know, it should.
This is not extreme.
It’s a girl thing.
What we would all be
if the big door inside us flew open.
Don’t tell me not to cry.
To calm it down
Not to be so extreme
To be reasonable.
I am an emotional creature.
It’s how the earth got made.
How the wind continues to pollinate.
You don’t tell the Atlantic ocean
to behave.
I am an emotional creature.
Why would you want to shut me down
or turn me off?
I am your remaining memory.
I am connecting you to your source.
Nothing’s been diluted.
Nothing’s leaked out.
I can take you back.
I love that I can feel the inside
of the feelings in you,
even if it stops my life
even if it hurts too much
or takes me off track
even if it breaks my heart.
It makes me responsible.
I am an emotional
I am an emotional, devotional,
incandotional, creature.
And I love, hear me,
love love love
being a girl.”
It’s a lot like the front cover, which features Kate Upton standing in freezing Antartica in nothing but undies and an unzipped winter coat (fun fact: this almost killed her), only instead of a busty lady, the ad features a sexy M&M peeling off her shell.
Here’s Ms. Green on last year’s back cover of SI:
Here’s another image promoted with SI:
Here’s the winner of the M & Ms Hall of Shame, the S & M M & M “working the polls.”
Here’s Ms. Green getting stalked, ha ha ha.
Here’s Ms. Green at Party City where my daughter and I went shopping for her birthday party.
Ms. Green is one of two female M & Ms alongside 4 male M & Ms. The male M & Ms wear sneakers and act goofy. The females M & Ms wear heels and act sexy.
This male-female ratio is the same old Minority Feisty pattern we see all over kids media but the sexualization of Ms. Green is extreme, even for the run-of-the mill sexism in kid world.
Please go to M&Ms Facebook page and ask them to stop sexualizing female M & Ms. Ms. Green is everywhere. Our kids deserve more than to see females depicted in this stereotyped and degrading way.
On Facebook, I saw a great quote that I recognized immediately from one of my favorite episodes. This morning, when my daughter complained that she was bored, I tried it on her.
She burst into a huge smile.
Thank you, Louis C. K., for getting insight to my daughter, making her happy, and rescuing our family from a cranky morning.
Venker argues that women have always had it better than men. Here’s why:
Prior to the 1970s, people viewed gender roles as as equally valuable. Many would argue women had the better end of the deal! It’s hard to claim women were oppressed in a nation in which men were expected to stand up when a lady enters the room or to lay down their lives to spare women life.When the Titanic went down in 1912, its sinking took 1,450 lives. Only 103 were women. One-hundred three.
Compare that with last year’s wrecked cruise line, the Costa Concordia. It resulted in fewer deaths, but there was another significant difference. “There was no ‘women and children first’ policy. There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboats. It was disgusting,” said passenger Sandra Rogers, 62.
Let’s just leave aside for a moment the idea that if women and men actually had equality, there’s a better chance that a woman would’ve been captain of the Costa Concordia– not to mention the Titanic– and the ship wouldn’t have sunk in the first place.
Here’s a question for the women of America. What would you rather have: equal pay for equal work or men standing up when you enter a room? Do you prefer to rely on chivalry for your well being or financial and political autonomy?
Yes, women, there’s a chance that you might find yourself on a sinking cruise ship someday. And at that moment, you may be incredibly grateful that you gave up all of your rights so that a fellow passenger is noble enough to die for you. (Then again, you might not. You might be old or sick and decide it’s your time to go.) But far more probable than that life outcome, harm is likely to come to you from your husband or boyfriend. On average, more than three women are murdered by their intimate partners in this country every day. One in four women (25%) in America are victims of domestic violence. (Stats from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence)
With violence against women being a national epidemic, you’d think that stopping it would be high on the U.S. government’s agenda. Yet, our congress stalled the Violence Against Women Act. I don’t get it. I thought that protecting women was a #1 priority. Women and children first, right? What happened here? Talk about chivalry being dead.
Perhaps, instead of hoping that men do the right thing for us, women are better off getting the power to do the right thing for ourselves.
Women are half of the population but underrepresented in the U.S. government. In 2013, women make up just 18% of congress. There are only 5 women governors. Throughout U.S. history, only four women have held the office of Supreme Court Justice. There has never been a female President of the United States.
But according to Venker, the problem for women is feminism. Besides using shipwrecks, she provides other evidence for the ultimate good of systemic sexism. Contradicting the idea of gender equality, Venker writes:
Those of us with children know better. We know little girls love their dolls and boys just want to kick that ball.
But Venker knows better. The whole purpose of her post is to promote her book, How to Choose a Husband and Make Peace with Marriage. According to her, “Its premise is that if women want to be successful in love, they should reject the cultural script they’ve been sold and adopt a whole new view of men and marriage.”
That cultural script is feminism. Can you imagine taking this woman’s advice on how to choose a husband? I’m happily married, by the way, and have been for ten years. What great wisdom will Venker bestow on women? Pick someone who loves cruises so that chivalry will come in handy? Brush up on shuffleboard?
The iron, forced upon young girl Monopoly players everywhere, has been ousted by the Internet generation. Here’s to that new Monopoly token, a cat, clawing away at old gender roles.
Are you thinking: How silly! How outdated. I can’t believe kids of olden times had to deal with that housewife bias.
At first, I was. I never even knew what that iron was for. Isn’t it great that Monopoly has the guts to be progressive while so much of kidworld becomes ever more gender segregated?
Here’s just the latest example of sexist stereotyping from my Twitter feed today: Hasbro’s pink Heartbreaker Bow, part of the new Nerf Rebelle line for girls. Rebelle, seriously? Gag.
The Heartbreaker Bow attempts to mutate the archery craze– incited after girls finally got to see Hollywood images of powerful bow wielding heroines like Merida of “Brave” and Katniss of “The Hunger Games”– into something cuter and more “feminine.”
Yesterday on my Twitter feed? This display of books from Harrod’s in London:
So good for Monopoly, a new leader in saying no to gender segregation. But then something occurred to me. Even I, a 44 year old woman obsessed with the gendering of toys, had no idea that the iron was created for girl players. Do kids today even know what an iron is? No one irons anymore. That’s when I got it: It’s not the sexism that’s outdated, its the iron. Girls don’t know that they’re supposed to pick the iron. Monopoly isn’t abandoning sexism but updating it. The iron is being replaced with…a kitty.
Monopoly’s month-long “Save Your Token” contest ended Feb. 6, 2013 when fans’ least-favorite token was replaced with this newer model. I suppose we should be grateful the diamond ring option wasn’t chosen.
Like Miss America, Michele Pred‘s “Miss Conception” also dons a crown and scepter. Yet instead of jewels and gems, the latter’s pageant gear is adorned with birth control pills.
Pred says:
It really started with the growing concern before the election… There are still many states that make it very difficult for women and teenagers to have easy access to birth control.
Today, Marvel Entertainment announced a new partnership with Hyperion Books — like Marvel, a Disney subsidiary — to publish The She-Hulk Diaries and Rogue Touch, two novels described as featuring ‘strong, smart heroines seeking happiness and love while battling cosmic evil.’ Yes, it’s time for superhero chick-lit.
That’s right, if you want to sell to women, put make-up on the cover. That’s what we girls care about. Looks like a compelling read full of complex characters and exciting drama!
Huh? Who “realized” there were no females? How did that great epiphany happen? (I can’t wait for everyone to “realize” that girls have gone missing from children’s movies.) Was it a Marvel insight? They were all in a meeting and one of the artists slapped his hand to his forehead, shouting, “Whoa dudes, we forgot the women!”
Both Marvel and DC Comics have been at the center of concerns and controversies recently regarding women in comics, both in terms of the way they are represented on the page and in the offices of the Big Two comics publishers.
While DC Comics has quite a few ongoing titles devoted to female characters (Batgirl, Batwoman, Birds of Prey, Catwoman Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Voodoo), there are very few women actually involved in creating them, an issue that has infused criticism of the company’s relaunch since the beginning, and was recently compounded by the news that writer Gail Simone is leaving Firestorm.
This post made me wonder what it feels like to be a female artist at Marvel or DC and marvel (ha ha) at how challenging it must be for women to get their own narratives out on the page in that kind of environment. It’s already risky for any artist to put her vision out in the world. Can you imagine trying to achieve that there? Talk about the opposite of support.
ComicsAlliance goes on:
Marvel Comics, meanwhile, seems to have the opposite problem; with the recent cancellation of X-23, there are no female-led ongoings in the Marvel Universe (with the possible exception of the 12-issue miniseries The Fearless) but significantly more women working in creative and editorial roles. The two companies illustrate two different but interrelated problems: the lack of women playing major roles in the comics, and the lack of women playing major roles in creating them. While neither situation is ideal, what are the implications of both problems, and which has a bigger impact on the comics that are created or the audience they reach?
I don’t see these as “opposite problems,” or even “different” or “interrelated.”
Here’s the problem in a nutshell. Marvel and DC, are you listening because right now, I’m going to save you millions of dollars in consulting fees and identify the root of your problem for you in just 4 words: NO WOMEN IN POWER. Every time you make a hire, think up a character, or draw an image, ask yourself this simple question: woman in power, yes or no? FYI, this image would be a no.
