Look what Ms. Green has to say on M & Ms’ Facebook page today

Posted on March 16, 2012 by margotmagowan

So after I posted about sexualizing M & M’s, (I cannot even believe I have to write that, but alas, I do) I got some comments about Ms. Brown being a feminist. She’s wearing glasses, is a business executive, and Tweets empowering messages about women.

Here’s the problem: Besides the glasses and gloves, all Ms. Brown is wearing is her pumps. The main difference between male M & Ms and female M & Ms appears to be shoes. Many kids who are looking at these pictures can’t read. Put Ms. Brown in sneakers so she can walk and run like the others, and then we can talk about her backstory.

But, because I am 43 years old and can read and use a computer, I went to M & Ms FB page today to read up on Ms. Brown. Here is the first things I saw:

The boys tell me a big basketball tournament started this week. Any team wearing green has my heart! 😉 – Ms. Green

Spoken like a true cheerleader.

Here’s her next post:

Ms. Brown is sitting in her office reciting decimals in honor of Pi Day. Me, I’m off to shop! – Ms. Green

OK, so I guess Ms. Brown is the smart one and Ms. Green is the trivial, boy crazy one.

I’ve been trying to figure out why even though females are 51% of the population that female characters in the imaginary world– whether its movies, cereal boxes, snack food, or candy– are shown as a minority. Part of the reason is that if you only show one female, you only have to come up with one look and one narrative for her. It’s easy to stereotype her. If you have two females, its still fairly easy. Make a smart one and a pretty or boy crazy one.

If you scroll down, Ms. Brown, the business executive, the feminist, does have something to say, too. Here it is:

From Our Sponsor: For Working Women, Business Travel Is In the Bag

Nasty weather. Long lines. Agonizing delays. Yes, business travel is rife with obstacles, so the last thing a professional woman needs is for her own purse or bag to make life on the road any more adventurous.

When it comes to preparing for an important flight, it’s not enough to pack light – you need to pack smart. Taking a savvy approach to your luggage and carry-ons can make any work trip easier to stomach. That’s why we turned to a true expert in living life from a bag, M&M’S® Ms. Brown, who recently stepped out of her corner office where she served as Chief Chocolate Officer for 70 years, for her tips to help businesswomen prepare for travel more effectively.

It’s OK to think small. A woman needs her toiletries, but Ms. Brown warns that over-stuffing a carry-on bag with bulky liquids, gels or aerosols is a surefire way to have a problem. “You always see travelers tossing large bottles of face wash, moisturizer or even toothpaste in the trash at security checkpoints,” says Ms. Brown. “That’s bad for your wallet – and even worse for your hygiene!” Ms. Brown opts to pour her favorite products in travel-size containers (roughly 3-ounces or less) and stores them together in a 1-quart ziplock bag in her carry-on. “If you just can’t survive without a big bottle of fancy shampoo or conditioner, you’ll need to keep them in checked luggage,” Ms. Brown says, quickly adding, “Of course, that’s not a problem I run into personally.”

Don’t just save your receipts, store them. Business travelers rack up expenses, and organizing mounting piles of receipts on the go is no easy task. “Your purse is not a cash register drawer, it shouldn’t be overflowing with loose receipts,” says Ms. Brown. Her solution: Store receipts in one standard mailing envelope in your purse or carry-on bag. “That way you don’t lose receipts – or any friends in your company’s accounting department when you hand over incomplete expense reports,” Ms. Brown says.

Ease the (hunger) pain of travel. “I like to work in the airport or on long flights, but it’s hard to concentrate when your stomach’s growling,” Ms. Brown cautions with a chuckle. Her answer for hunger? Bringing finger foods on flights. She advises keeping small, portable snacks in your carry-on to satisfy cravings on the road. “I usually recommend the delicious milk chocolate of M&M’S®,” says Ms. Brown. “Of course, I’m a tad biased.”

The woman knows how to pack!

Lord, who has the job to develop these M & M personalities, looks, and back story? Are they hiring? Can you imagine how cool it would be to make some truly subversive, kick ass M & Ms?

Seriously, what would happen if half of the imaginary characters in kids movies and products were female? Even non-creative people would be forced to make some effort to move out of gender stereotyping.

Please go to M & Ms Facebook page and ask them to stop sexualizing food marketed to kids.

Beautiful gives her daughter something to look forward to

Posted on March 16, 2012 by margotmagowan

That’s the caption for an Elizabeth Arden ad I saw in O Magazine. Here it is:

I know there’s hardly any point in getting pissed off about sexist ads from cosmetic companies, but the mom being “beautiful” gives her daughter something to look forward to?

Are you kidding me?

What really drives me crazy about this fucked up commercial is that we get all pissed off and holier than thou about moms who put their daughters in beauty pageants or shows like “Toddlers and Tiaras.” This ad from Elizabeth Arden in a mainstream magazine sends the exact same message: mothers and daughters are connected by a mutual obsession with beauty, and beauty will lead them both to success and adventure.

The difference between “Toddlers and Tiaras” and this Elizabeth Arden ad? Class. Moms with money may buy expensive cream. Moms with less money may put their kids in beauty pageants. Getting upset by one and not the other is like saying you’re not an alcoholic as long as you drink aged scotch or expensive wine. We owe our children more than this.

Elizabeth Arden, my daughters have more to look forward to than being “beautiful.” Please leave my kids out of your stupid commercial.

If you agree and are offended by this ad, please tell Elizabeth Arden on its Facebook page.

Ask M & Ms to stop sexualizing female cartoon characters

Posted on March 15, 2012 by margotmagowan

Yesterday, I blogged about how, except for the pink ghetto, female characters marketed to kids are usually shown as a minority. They are also sexualized. See the M & Ms below as a typical example. Ms. Brown, the new female M & M character, also shown in heels, is missing from this photo. You can see her here.

I wrote about how presenting females as a minority is dangerous because it normalizes invisible women. Adults stop noticing that girls have gone missing. So do kids.

Females are 51% of the population but we manage to make the illusion of a female minority real when it comes to power positions across America. At the top, women are stuck at 16%.

Where else are females a minority? In the imaginary world, a place where singing lions befriend warthogs, rats can cook, and toys come to life, where anything should be possible. So why is the animated world so sexist? Why do the female M & Ms have to be in the minority, wear high heels, and bat their eyelashes? Why is this OK with parents? What is this gender stereotyping teaching our kids?

A couple things happened after my blog yesterday.

I got even more than the usual amount of hate emails on SFGate: Who cares about M & Ms, I’m stupid, I’m ugly, I can’t write blah blah blah.

Then I saw on FB someone had blogged on About Face about the same sexualized M & Ms issue and was asked by her sister: who cares?

And finally, my daughter is turning three this week. When I went to Party City this morning, I was greeted at the door by a giant green M & M in go go boots. Every kid who walks in the store sees that. It is messed up. It’s no better than that cartoon Camel selling cigarettes to kids. Sexualizing girls is dangerous, and it needs to stop.

So, if you think the above picture is messed up, if you think female M & Ms should be allowed to wear sneakers and run around just like the males get to do, please go to M&Ms Facebook page. Ask M & Ms to stop sexualizing cartoon characters. It’s bad for kids.

Reel Girl rates M & Ms ***SSS*** for extreme gender stereotyping.

This is what I came home to last night

Posted on March 15, 2012 by margotmagowan

Dad reading The Brave Little Seamstress

I won’t tell you about the mayhem that happened after this picture was taken. I guess that’s why we have photos.

Females 51% of population but minority of imaginary characters and real life power positions

Posted on March 14, 2012 by margotmagowan

Until early this year, there was just one lone female M & M. The green one.

Then just before the Superbowl Time Magazine reported on the debut of another, bringing the female-male ratio to 1: 3:

“M&Ms already has characters based on the other colors in its candy rainbow (red, yellow, blue, orange and green), but until now the candy has gone largely male-centric. Green has been the lone female. Brown will join her, with high heels in full view.”

I suppose we grateful she’s not Mrs. Brown and that she’s wearing glasses. I hope with those pumps that it’s before Labor day.

Unfortunately, M & Ms are just another product where female characters are not only sexualized but presented as a minority.

Here’s a Goldfish package from Pepperidge Farm showing three males and one female.

Here’s a new set of LEGO minifigs. Harley Quinn, on the far left and not shown in her underwear is also female, making the ratio four males to two females. In the whole set, I count three times as many males as females.

In her film, Miss Representation, Jennifer Siebel Newsom argues that there’s a connection between sexualized images of women in the media and lack of women in power positions.

I agree with this, but it goes beyond sexualized images. It’s images at all. The imaginary world has done something really scary. Females are 51% of the population, but in cartoon images marketed to kids, except for the pink ghetto, females are presented as a minority. This illusion is dangerous, because it normalizes the lack of females. We expect it and accept it.

We’ve become so used to seeing females presented as a minority that we hardly notice it anymore. We don’t question it. Even worse, our kids don’t.

Look at this poster for “Arthur Christmas:”

It’s typical of movies made for kids for males to star and also to represent the majority of characters.

The lack of female characters exists in most products marketed to kids whether its toy characters, cereal boxes, or animated films.

Here are some stats from the Geena Davis Institute on the lack of girls in animated films. Here is Reel Girl’s Gallery on Girl Gone Missing From Kids Movies in 2011.

Do you think the lack of female imaginary characters could have anything to do with what Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg calls the aspiration or ambition gap between boys and girls?

The other place in America besides the imaginary world where females truly are a minority? Leadership positions. In almost all professions in the top positions, women don’t make it past 16%. Here are stats on that.

Could the lack of females in these two worlds be connected?

Why do you think in imaginary worlds created for kids– worlds populated by singing lions who befriend warthogs, rats who cook, and toys who come to life, worlds where anything should be possible– females are restricted to a minority? Why does the lack of females in the imaginary world, of all places, reflect the same lack of females as in power positions? How do you think this gender gap affecting kids imaginations and aspirations? Why are we allowing this gender gap to happen?

Katniss sighting in NYC!

Posted on March 14, 2012 by margotmagowan

A commenter sent in a Hunger Games fan link with photos of the movie poster around America. Most are of the mockingjay symbol but there are a couple of Katniss. Here’s my favorite, above an NYC subway entrance:

The pose and intensity reminds me of the Greek goddess Artemis. LOVE.

Please send photos if you see Katniss in your city. Still looking on the streets of SF.

Girl Gone Missing: Where is Katniss on ‘The Hunger Games’ movie poster?

Posted on March 13, 2012 by margotmagowan

This post has been updated to include comments from readers:

Here’s the movie poster:

Here’s the book cover:

At least the book isn’t by S. Collins, right? I suppose we should be grateful for that.

Reel Girl blog readers from the UK and New Zealand report spotting the protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, on posters in their countries. Katniss was also pictured on the first paperback UK version. Since the movie, she’s vanished from all covers.

The U.S. pb edition never showed Katniss.

Google images also shows “Hunger Games” movie posters with Katniss, but I haven’t seen any around the Bay Area. Have you? Or in your city/ town? Please let me know and even better, send me a photo.

Katniss Everdeen is played in the movie by Jennifer Lawrence who was nominated for an Academy Award for “Winter’s Bone.” You’d think that “The Hunger Games” marketing department would want to highlight such a popular and critically acclaimed actress.

Or maybe not.

In an article titled “Gender Games” The Wall Street Journal reports that the book’s publisher, “Scholastic, considered dozens of cover designs, including portraits of Katniss, before settling on a more ‘iconic’ image of a bird pendant that plays a role in the story.”

The WSJ also reports that the film studio, Lion’s Gate, is hopeful that in spite of the female protagonist, males will go see this movie:

“Set in a dystopian future, “The Hunger Games” centers on Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old girl who is called upon to fight 23 other teens to the death in a twisted annual survival competition that is televised to the nation of Panem. The quick pace, strong characters and blood sport of author Suzanne Collins’s trilogy helped attract a robust male readership.”

In some ways, this marketing strategy is good news, because Hollywood will not be toning down Katniss’s character to play up the romance angle:

“They’ve taken away the love story and focused on the hero, who, by virtue of her altruism and fire, is going to stand up against this situation,” says Vincent Bruzzese, president of Ipsos MediaCT’s Motion Picture Group, which does market research for movie studios and filmmakers. “What they are doing is marketing the archetypal themes that are gender-neutral.”

Jezebel posts: “Maybe, though, it’d be encouraging to see a movie with a dominant female lead transcend the demographic corrals studio analysts have split us all into.”

If “gender neutral” means keeping the focus on Katniss’s heroics and not her relationship, I’m all for that. Moving past those limited “demographic corrals” would be great. So if I have to give up Katniss on the movie poster to keep the narrative from getting watered down to romance, I suppose that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

Still, I look forward to the day when a Academy Award nominee can show up on the poster for her own movie without fear that she’ll scare the boys away.

Also, if they let Lawrence on the poster, maybe they’d pay her more money. Women and Hollywood reports that she’s earning $500,000 for her role. Compare that to Chris Pine, a young male action star and not Academy Award nominated, who earned $3 million for “Unstoppable.” Women and Hollywood writes: “She’s on the poster, is clearly the lead, yet still doesn’t get paid the same as the guys.”

But what if she’s not on the poster?

Furthermore, this same kind of invisible-female sexism has a powerful influence on movies marketed to little kids. Movie posters for kids continuously picture no females at all or females on the sidelines. Take a look at Reel Girl’s Gallery of Girls Gone Missing from Kids’ Movies in 2011.

Parents should not let five year old boys have the power to make five year old girls disappear. The gender imbalance in animated movies isn’t really about five year old boys anyway. It’s about their parents. Parents are the ones who buy books, movie tickets, and toys. Just because adults live in a sexist world, doesn’t mean our kids should be trained to keep repeating it. At the very least, adults could be doing much more to present the next generation with imaginary worlds where sexism doesn’t exist. Yet, in kid-movie-world, females are represented as a tiny minority. Girls are half of the kid population. It’s time that Hollywood recognized that by putting females on movie posters, and of course, in the movies as well.

Girl gone missing: Where is Katniss on ‘The Hunger Games’ movie poster?

Posted on March 12, 2012 by margotmagowan

Here’s the movie poster:

Here’s the book cover:

At least the book isn’t by S. Collins, right? I suppose we should be grateful for that.

According to Google images, there are other movie posters that show the protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, but I haven’t seen one anywhere around the Bay Area. Have you? Please let me know if you do see one and even better, send me a photo.

According to the Wall Street Journal: The publisher, Scholastic, considered dozens of cover designs, including portraits of Katniss, before settling on a more ‘iconic’ image of a bird pendant that plays a role in the story.

Lion’s Gate is hopeful that in spite of the female protagonist, males will go see “The Hunger Games:”

“Set in a dystopian future, “The Hunger Games” centers on Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old girl who is called upon to fight 23 other teens to the death in a twisted annual survival competition that is televised to the nation of Panem. The quick pace, strong characters and blood sport of author Suzanne Collins’s trilogy helped attract a robust male readership.”

In some ways, I think that the marketing strategy is great news, because they are not playing up the romance to attract females to the movie.

“They’ve taken away the love story and focused on the hero, who, by virtue of her altruism and fire, is going to stand up against this situation,” says Vincent Bruzzese, president of Ipsos MediaCT’s Motion Picture Group, which does market research for movie studios and filmmakers. “What they are doing is marketing the archetypal themes that are gender-neutral.”

If “gender neutral” means not playing up the love story to attract females, I’m all for that.

Jezebel posts: “Maybe, though, it’d be encouraging to see a movie with a dominant female lead transcend the demographic corrals studio analysts have split us all into.”

Absolutely! Moving past those limited “demographic corrals” would be great. If I have to give up Katniss on the movie poster, I suppose that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I have high expectations for this movie.

I’m half way through the book and I love it. Katniss is smart, cool, complex, beautiful and a total bad ass. She is not a Token Feisty. In the narrative, she is never referred to as unusual or an exception of her gender because of she’s brave and skillful. I’ve continually asked on this blog if there are imaginary worlds where sexism doesn’t exist. Though Panem is a dystopia, this may be it.

I do look forward to the day when a female protagonist can show up on her own poster or book cover without scaring boys away.

Also, while I understand the marketing strategy for “The Hunger Games” it’s unacceptable for the exact same kind of invisible female sexism have such a powerful influence on movies for little kids. Parents should not let five year old boys have the power to make five year old girls invisible. And this isn’t really about five year old boys anyway, but their parents. It’s parents who buy books, buy movie tickets, and buy toys. It’s absurd for movie posters for kids to continuously picture no girls at all or girls on the sidelines as do almost all of the children’s movies in 2011. Just because adults live is a sexist world doesn’t mean our kids have to. At the very least, adults should be trying much harder to present the next generation with imaginary worlds where females are not a tiny minority. Girls are, after all, half of the kid population. It’s time for Hollywood to recognize that.

Women and the leadership gap: Post-feminism is dead

Posted on March 11, 2012 by margotmagowan

Leslie Bennetts, author of The Feminine Mistake, wrote on the lack of women in leadership positions on The Daily Beast. The post begins with this question:

It’s been almost a half-century since the modern women’s movement began. So why aren’t more women in positions of power?

Bennetts begins with the contraceptions hearings in congress where Rep. Carolyn Maloney made news by asking: Where are the women?

Bennetts writes:

Throughout American society, the dramatic underrepresentation of women at the top remains the norm, despite widespread misconceptions to the contrary….The truth is that men continue to run most major institutions and make most of the important political, executive, policy and other decisions in the United States. And as demonstrated by the current battle over contraceptive coverage in health insurance, the dearth of women decision-makers often results in policies that fail to serve women’s needs, let alone the larger goal of equality….

“Women remain hugely underrepresented at positions of power in every single sector across this country,” said Barnard College president Debora Spar at a White House conference on urban economic development last month.

“We have fallen into what I call the 16 percent ghetto, which is that if you look at any sector, be it aerospace engineering, Hollywood films, higher education, or Fortune 500 leading positions, women max out at roughly 16 percent,” Spar said. “That is a crime, and it is a waste of incredible talent”… Kathryn Kolbert, director of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard. “We made great progress on the rights front in the 1970’s, and life has changed significantly, but progress for women has plateaued in rights, in leadership, and in the ability to contribute equally in social and cultural affairs.”

Here are more stats from the post:

Women are 51% of the U.S. population

17% of U.S. senators are women

16.8% of House of Representatives are women

3 Justices out of 9 on the Supreme Court are women

6 Governors out of 50 are women (12%)

23.6% of state legislators are women

9% of Mayors are women in largest 100 cities in U.S.

U.S. ranks 71st in the world in female legislative representation, behind Bangladesh, Sudan and United Arab Emirates

Over half of college graduates but less than a quarter of full professors and a fifth of college presidents are female

Women are one third of M.B.A. classes and 2% of Fortune 500 CEOs

6 % of top earners

16 %t of board directors and corporate officers

Women are 50% of new entrants to the profession, but less than a fifth of law firm partners, federal judges, law school deans, and Fortune 500 general counsels

In the financial services industry, 57 percent of the workers are women but 1.5 percent of the CEO’s are female

Women are 50% of divinity students but 3 percent of the pastors of large congregations in protestant churches that have been ordaining women for decades

95% of top grossing Hollywood films directed by men

In 84 years, 4 women have been nominated for best director, only one has won

2012 Academy Award nominations, 98% movies directed by men, 84% written by men, 70% starring men

77 percent of Oscar voters are male.

Gendering kids food: M & Ms keep females in minority and in high heels

Posted on March 10, 2012 by margotmagowan

Until last month, there was just one lone female M & M. The green one.