You poke it, you own it is indeed an ancient “man law”.
I’ve been getting a ton of emails and blog posts on Technorati defending the “you poke it, you own it” commercial (and so has Twisty, apparently) and the general gist of the complaints is the same: Feminists are clearly irrelevant because they waste their time talking about petty shit like a beer ad that instructs men that it’s cute to sit around with their guy friends and joke about how their penises are so mighty that they have the power to strip women of their autonomy. (Also, beers, but beers don’t have conscious thought so that’s mildly to severely less offensive depending on the amount of value you place on the existence of conscious thought. My guess is men who feel attached to Miller Lite commercials don’t value it that much.) A sample of the kind of criticism I’ve been seeing:
I’m generally sympathetic to their sentiments, but um… are you guys (women) out of your mind? Spending this much intellectual effort critiquing the not-very-catchy catch phrase from a beer commercial? I can get behind using a dumb beer commerical as the starting point in a women’s rights essay/blog entry, or at least an essay on men being humorously stupid (which is pretty much what all Miller and Bud commericals are about, being as their beer isn’t good enough to compete on taste) but there’s clearly some baggage being unloaded on a bunch of fairly innocent and clever commercials.
Ah yes, women who like to exercise the brain cells are mentally unstable, a venerable anti-feminist argument. Never fear, good sirs who love the beer commercials. Twisty and I are avowed non-procreaters so if all this thinking is indeed harming our uteruses, the practical effects of this are nil.
But blog posts like this are so illogical there must be some kind of Latin word for the error in logic they make. What is the phrase for an argument that disproves itself merely by existing? For if it’s petty to waste time writing blog posts protesting beer commercials that dehumanize women for having sexual intercourse, then surely it’s pettier to waste time to write blog posts whining about aforementioned blog posts. The sheer amount of time that defenders of this commercial spend on it demonstrates their deep affection for it and the sentiments of male ownership of female bodies contained within. The sheer defensiveness of this beer commercial space as a place where men get to let their hair down and talk about how they all really do feel superior to women after all is enough to alert those of us who are interested in a little justice instead of carefully protecting male egos that this is indeed something worth examining.
The absurd nature of the “petty” argument reaches are evidenced by this blog post Ampersand wrote defending a blog post he wrote a long time ago called the Male Privilege Checklist. The Male Privilege Checklist is a very silly, petty list and to reflect how silly and unimportant it is, anti-feminists on the internet have spents years grousing and complaining about it. This latest round of complaints is about how small the advantages men have over women in American society are, and therefore how petty it is to notice them. (As Ampersand says, it’s a stretch to suggest that the grousers would refuse to complain about a petty cut in their wages of even 10%, much less find themselves shoved back to 76 on the dollar they earn now.)
Anyway, the critic Ampersand takes on whips out one of my all-time favorite anti-feminist arguments called the “I’ll Give You Something to Cry About” argument.
We have women on this planet with REAL PROBLEMS and we’re going to fill our list with entries about our clothes and our weight issues?
Women in Iran are being sold into prostitution as children and then hanged for ‘promiscuous behaviour’… and the author of this list is going to concentrate on how long it takes to put on makeup. Shouldn’t the women with all the money and freedom the world has to offer (even if that money and freedom is fractionally less than that of their male counterparts) be trying to help the millions (billions?) of downtrodden women in China and Africa? […]
I think that, instead of focusing on little gripes (some of these 43 things are quite little comparatively), everyone needs to pull together to make sure that North Dakota and the new SCOTUS don’t overturn Roe v Wade.
Instead of the little gripes about things that affect only women, let’s focus on important shit, like my ability to fuck my girlfriend knowing if she gets pregnant on accident, I won’t end up being forced to pay child support. Women are getting killed in Iran and American men are paying child support already, and women have the nerve to complain about systematic oppression at home?
The logic of “I’ll Give You Something to Cry About” is as follows: Some people get beat down once a week, some get beat down once a day. The former have no cause to complain about the weekly beatings and they sure as hell don’t want to tempt anyone into giving them daily beatings, do they? The argument that no one should be getting beat at all is thereby wedged off the table.
At this point, I figure it’s obvious why anti-feminists get into such an uproar when a feminist singles out all the little ways wound into every day life that women are put into a subservient position. It’s not because it’s “petty” and they sincerely think being irritated at beer commercials precludes being concerned about honor killings overseas. It’s not because they think these things are truly beneath attention, as the now 132 comments at Hugo’s will show, commets that are mostly anti-feminists flipping shit because he wrote a post about the joking methods sexist men use to stifle women’s voices in a discussion. The reason sexists are so protective of the little things is because the devil is in the details. They are trying to prevent people from seeing the ugly truth that sexism isn’t the individual sins of a few bad apples, but is a systematic injustice.
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This one always baffles me. Maybe these people got confused and thought they were reading a copy of The Economist instead of looking at a computer screen?
First of all, it’s pretty clear that the theme of most blogs is “Things the blogger likes to write about”. Blogs aren’t public instittutions; they don’t have any obligation to only blog about the most serious thing in the world.
Second, if you really follow the logic of those “I’ll give you something to cry about” posts (Thanks for giving that one a name, by the way), then only the most miserable person in the world has any right to complain. I mean, a homeless person in America is probably better off then a dissident in a Chinese prison. It doesn’t mean that the homeless person doesn’t have things to complain about.
there’s clearly some baggage being unloaded on a bunch of fairly innocent and clever commercials.
Or maybe said commercials aren’t so innocent and clever.
i understand why people would be upset by something like this, but it’s important to keep in mind that this is a commercial designed to sell pisswater beer to idiots. the fact that the cast of characters are a bunch of pisswater-drinking idiots means that we can laugh at how ridiculously trogloditic it is for them to be arguing over women who, if they were to overhear these idiots’ arguments, would never give them the time of day. i’m sure that wasn’t the intention of whoever wrote the ad, but those guys are more of the pisswater drinkers (but they’re worse because they’re probably also yuppies).
ergh. it’s too early to express myself clearly. yes, i agree with you, it’s stupid and sexist and pointing that out is not petty, but that doesn’t mean we can’t laugh at the commercial (albeit for different reasons than intended) because it shows idiots being idiots drinking shitty beer and saying idiotic things.
also, if we’re concerned about using our time in a productive, social-ill-combating manner, then why would we be exploring the bowels of count blogula’s castle?
Well, dissecting a beer commercial is like trying to find out why there are so many buxom nurses on Univision sitcoms, and getting an ad agency to incorporate a heightened feminist sensibility into its commercials is like trying to explain in cold, rational terms to your cat why she shouldn’t tear up the arm of that chair. You see, Molly, the overall aesthetics of the room are heightened when the primary pieces of furniture remain in tact.
I keep wondering when they’re going to make a Duff beer commercial for real:
Women with Signs: Down with sexism! Down with sexism!
Man 1: Look at all those feminists.
Man 2: Are you thinking what I’m thinking? [they both reach for bottles of beer, shake them up, and spray the foam on the protesters. This magically turns
them into dancing bikini models.]
Both Men: Yeah! All right!
The “I’ll give you something to cry aboutâ€? excuse also frequently makes an appearance whenever the subject of race is brought up, as though it’s only appropriate to complain of racism from people who wear hoods and wield Jim Crow laws.
yah - not so much innocent and clever, as malicious and underhanded objectification
This is always the stupidest of all stupid arguments. “You can’t worry about beer commercials because women are DYING in IRAN.” “You can’t worry about civil liberties because NORTH KOREA is FAR MORE REPRESSIVE.” “You can’t worry about Iraq, because things are FAR WORSE in DARFUR.”
Of course, what should we do about any of the “worse” places? Well, the complainers are always very circumspect about that. Stuff. You know, to make it better.
Look, I’m willing to bet if most feminists could improve the lot of women everywhere in the world to the level it is in the US, they’d do it in a heartbeat. But we can’t. There is very little Americans can do to improve the lot of women in Saudi Arabia overnight, other than to bring it up from time to time. We can do quite a bit in America, of course, because we live here. Unsurprisingly, that’s where we choose to spend most of our time.
I wouldn’t call it “I’ll give you something to cry about”. I’d call that argument the “children starving in china” arguement.
In any case, the point is to evade moral responsibility for benefiting from systematic differences by downplaying them. Unfortunately, privilege arguments do tend to oversimplfy things and that opens the door to counter arguements - like, how many rich women have opportunities that low income men don’t, etc. It is even harder when you look at the screwy effect race and low income have on gender privilege as well. The left tends to roll all the shit a person gets dumped on them in to race or gender alone and ignore the effects of class status on both. This leaves gaping holes open to attack based on the complex realities, even if the theoretical structures are sound.
Not that these guys are interested in going after the classism that modifies race and gender privileges. Much easier to play both sides against the middle to retain any privilege you have (or one day lay claim to in the Horatio Alger mythology of American male life), even if the solitary effects of gender privilege are overstated when other modifying factors are not accounted for.
yah - not so much innocent and clever, as malicious and underhanded objectification
malicious? i don’t think it’s malicious. malice implies intent, and real thought, not something readily available to ad agencies or barflies. i guess you could make the case that all objectification is malicious, but that’s another one of those sweeping generalizations we liberals tend to abhor. and contrary to being underhanded, this commercial is overt. it’s not smart enough for subtlety, and neither is its intended audience.
Stop complaining about the UV rays coming through the hole in the Ozone and giving you cancer! On Mars, you’d be frozen by now! And don’t get me started on the atmosphere!
you know, in a few billion years the sun will expand and destroy the earth. and nobody is doing anything to stop it! priorities people, priorities!
“You poke it; you own it.”
Unless one argues the commercial wasn’t implying the rule applies to women, not only beer, one hasn’t got a leg to stand on that the commercial was innocent in any way.
Ownership. of. people.
That’s something that should fall clearly into the realm of immoral, illegal, and unthinkable for decent people. I would think if someone talked about my mother being my father’s property, my dad would tell them very coldly they have no business talking like that. Or vice versa. And you want to bring race and class issues into it as well as sex? I don’t think a black man would take kindly to the women in his life being considered people’s property;we’re not that many generations away from it being the literal truth.
Ownership of women through sex isn’t just a joke in a bar. It’s a historical reality, including rules in the Bible about how much the rapist must pay his victim’s father for taking ownership of her without permission.
Whenever men bandy around the idea that women are property to be owned, rather than people who make decisions, it is not only the right, but the moral duty of anyone who believes women are human to speak up. It is really that simple. That’s why idiots get called on their idiocy at Pandagon.
Can I get off at this exit and look at that cool / chilling clip art of Christopher Columbus for a little bit?
“Thursday, 11 October… It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language.”
There’s a scene in Father Ted:
TED: (holding up model sheep) See, Dougal, these ones here are SMALL…
(points out window at sheep)… but those ones over there are FAR AWAY.
Some of these people need a similar lesson on the difference between “petty” and “doesn’t affect me.”
The reason sexists are so protective of the little things is because the devil is in the details. They are trying to prevent people from seeing the ugly truth that sexism isn’t the individual sins of a few bad apples, but is a systematic injustice.
Most sexists don’t actually believe that they are sexist. In their heads, what they are doing isn’t sexist because hey, they’re not a sexist. So it must be that everyone else just doesn’t have a sense of humor.
So yeah, you’re exactly right. They’re doing it to protect the injustice, usually as a defense mechanism so they don’t have to think of themselves as perpetuators of that injustice.
Which is not to say that makes it somehow better. Rather, people should realize that something doesn’t have to be malicious to qualify as sexist.
If the “you poke it, you own it” ad wasn’t maliciously sexist, it wouldn’t make any sense at all.
“I’ll give you something to cry about,” is used as an argument against any criticism you make of US — or “first world” — politics. Death penalty? At least we have trials! Sweatshops? At least those people have jobs! Talking heads calling for genocide? At least we have freedom of the press! And on and on.
If the “you poke it, you own it� ad wasn’t maliciously sexist, it wouldn’t make any sense at all.
Have you seen the one where they argue about whether you can take beer back home with you after bringing it to a party, and a wrestler guy tears off his shirt, and they work in a few odd nods toward NFL penalty calls (”down by contact” and “tuck rule”), to conclude that you can bring home one beer in your pocket? Miller is perfectly capable of greenlighting an ad that doesn’t make any sense at all.
“You poke it, you own it.”
Nothing wrong with that as long as you’re talking about chocolates.
Flip, I saw that ad with the sound off (it being my policy that they can interrupt the show I’m watching, but I don’t have to listen to them) and I must admit, it made even less sense without the commentary.
The question is not why we are focusing on the “little things,” it’s why they are focusing on the “little things.”
They say so many of the injustices that plague us are so insignificant as to be a waste of our efforts to fight over, yet they find these same injustices to be significant enough to be worth defending. We fight for maternity leave, child support, access to emergency contraception—but who’s making it necessary for us to fight for them? Who’s fighting against them? Who but the same people who chide us for focusing on such “insignificant” things. These things, apparently, are worth their attention.
And meanwhile, this obligation we supposedly have, to concentrate all our efforts on only the biggest injustices against women, is apparently ours alone. The people denying us paid maternity leave are not devoting the money they save on that to help pay to fix obstetric fistulas in Africa, or attack honor killings in the Middle East, or to rescue little girls from the sex trade. Apparently only the marginalized class here has any responsibility for the more-marginalized people elsewhere—and I bet the patriarchy here wouldn’t give a damn about the patriarchy’s victims elsewhere, except that it conveniently gives them a defense against the complaints of their own victims.
Which means, essentially, that everyone who suggests that feminists stop harping over abortion access here and focus on worse things there is profitting from the existance of honor killings, of female genital mutilation, of child sex slavery, of everything worse than whatever it is they want us to stop complaining about at any given time. They use the existance thereof to secure their own comforts.
No wonder they have no real interest in helping to end even the worst of it.
Once I read an article on the BBC about a scummy academic Holocaust denier who was put on trial and went to jail for denying the Holocaust(a crime in some countries apparently). He had formerly been in court where he was forced to defend his views. The way he did this was not to argue against and systematic injustice to Jews, but to harp on the slightest details. He refused to see the big picture but was happy to argue about the handwriting on the third draft of an architect blueprint of a gaschamber, trying to use such pettyness to pick apart the fact that there were gas chambers ignoring the fact that thousands of people (both victims and perpetrators) remember the gas chambers. BTW he tried to say the gas chambers were not gas chambers at all but showers or some such disgusting thing.
Anyway I think these people are doing the same thing to a lesser degree, trying to deny huge injustices by trying to pick apar and deny the smallest pieces of them.
“You poke it you own it” infuriates me in a special way, I mean it is just a beer commercial, but why must the patriarchy be so petty as to not give me a moments peace and even have to rub sexism in my face with someting so petty as a beer commercial?
I’m a bit late on this debate and I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but the notion that “You poke it, you own it” isn’t a *wink*wink*nudge*nudge* reference to sex and relationships is preposterous for a very simple reason: The line doesn’t make sense in its “real” context. Really, would anyone ever describe the act of inserting your finger inside a beer bottle as “poking”? Is that what anyone thinks of as a poke? Not me. It’s just putting your finger in something. Ask the Pillsbury Doughboy or an elevator button, they know what a poke is.
Incidentally, this is also why, even if it weren’t offensive, the commercial still wouldn’t be funny.
Don’t confuse men who don’t think the commercial was a big deal or that the tag line didn’t apply to women with men who want to stifle all feminist critiques. That, in fact, seems to be where the commenter quoted in the post was coming from. You lose a lot of potential allies when you are so quick to label sympathizers as a fifth column when they’re simply not immediately on-board with your full world view. Maybe starting a dialog with those folks would give them the education they need to see things your way. Calling them sexist heretics who just want to oppress women does nothing but drive them away. But I guess that’s not as much fun.
Yeah, most condescending assholes who call you crazy and tell you you’re wasting your time would be “sympathizers” if you’d just be nice to them. If they were that interested in having a dialogue, they’d learn how to address the people they disagree with as human beings.
I’m always a bit surprised that some people don’t understand that bloggers can fight the “big” and “small” battles all at once. Multitasking!
And I hate people who bring up the “things are worse for…” trope unless there’s a legitimate reason. Sometimes arguments need to be reigned in with some perspective, but it seems unnecessary most of the time.
I thought the commercial was stupid but harmless when I first saw it. I read around a little bit on here and am now fairly convinced otherwise. If I had opened my mouth at first, though, I would have been run out of town.
People over-analyze shit all the time. If someone says you’re over-analyzing something they’re not NECESSARILY trying to maintain the patriarchy. Labeling people the enemy when they don’t immediately see eye-to-eye with you is hardly addressing them as human beings.
I’m not apologizing for the “I’ll give you something to cry about” misogynistic assholes, but you have to realize that not all men have taken feminist theory classes, even men who want nothing but empowerment and equality for the women in their lives. You gotta help learn them.
Maybe they could start by listening to women.
That’d be a great start, because unless they are willing to listen to women then us trying to teach them anything is kind of, you know, pointless.
Well, we’re doing that. By pointing out how ludicrous their position is.
Ludicrousness accepted. Listening is what I’m doin.
If I had opened my mouth at first, though, I would have been run out of town.
You didn’t open your mouth at first, though. You read the argument and decided whether or not you thought it was convincing. People who call you petty and crazy usually aren’t interested enough in what you have to say to listen to your argument before refuting it.
Yeah, but I would bet there’s men out there who think the beer commercial was inconsequential but are completely onboard with choice, equal pay, etc. It’d just be a shame to see them driven away.
…and, frankly, I new better than to say I disagreed with Amanda. [Dilemma: how does one make a winking smiley face without seeming like a complete dunce?]
It’d just be a shame to see them driven away.
From what? feminism? Choice? Equal pay?
Over the feminist critiscism of a shitty shitty beer commercial?
They weren’t likely to get laid prentending to be a feminist anyway, so they’ve probably not lost anything in the long run.
The sheer amount of these “insiginificant” comments that make their way to the moderation queue truly baffles me. As if someone’s RIGHTS were under attack. I mean, of all of Amanda’s posts to have gotten worked up about… I’ve begun to suspect that Miller Light itself is behind much of it. Because who else would honestly care enough about pointing out the blatantly obvious sexism of that ad to get worked up about it?
That and a few of the comments have directed people to the manlaws website, an ad campaign apparently significant money has been sunk into.
Did a bunch of comments get deleted from this thread? I peeked in to this (or maybe another) thread about an hour ago, said, “Whoa, a whole bunch of unfamilar names have commented but I can’t read it all now because I have to finish this project here, I’ll check back later,” and now either they’re gone or I’m in the wrong thread.
Rumblelizard: knows she’s lost, has no problem with asking for directions.
I didn’t delete any, maybe amanda did but I doubt it. maybe you want the original “you poke it you own it” thread.
If they care that much about abortion rights or equal pay, they won’t be driven away because a bunch of shrill harpies are wringing out their granny panties over a beer commercial. They’ll just keep not donating to Planned Parenthood like they always have.
It’s a fucking scary realization that a lot of people would support feminism if they weren’t so scared of women who get pissed off sometimes, but that doesn’t mean feminists wouldn’t be self-sabotaging idiots for sucking up to them.
Being a new commenter, I don’t want to overload the thread (also cause I don’t want to give the impression that I give that much of a sh*t about a beer commercial), but what I was referring to as potentially driving away sympathetic men was not the critique of the commercial but rather the practice of calling people out as defenders of the patriarchy if they slightly question the orthodoxy while remaining loyal feminists on the “big” issues.
I’m NOT saying they’re right, I’m just saying that it might be better in the long run to not view them as traitors who just want to get their hands on your uteruses. Cause, you know, we’re men and our egos bruise easily.
That won’t work in the long run, because one of the basic ideas holding up the patriarchy is that women should watch what they say to men because men are more powerful than women and have fragile egos. People who will only support feminism as long as feminists are careful not to hurt their feelings aren’t just part of the problem; they are the problem.
As someone said on another thread, you should be happy if being called a sexist a few times is the worst thing that ever happens to you because of your gender.
we’re men and our egos bruise easily
So funny. Didn’t we just post/discuss this? Yeah, we did!
Condor,
Please take a gander at this thread (Sorry, no good at html tags) :
http://pandagon.net/2006/05/28/cannabilistic-hoardes-of-egalitarian-women-turns-out-to-be-a-myth/
It’s full of posts about why we simply aren’t going to be bullied into ‘behaving’ by fear of bruising the male ego.
I think TWISTY said it best on her blog, Either is wrong to treat women like shit or it isn’t, if it’sthe right thing to do right then don’t suck shrillfeminists or no.
It should be men’s jobs asgood human beings to not say stupid feuckedup shit that purpetuates sexism theyshouldn’t need mommy behind thier backs correcting them. BUT if a woman says she feels some guy is being sexistand you missed it (becuase everyone slips sometimes) you should listen to her. what gives guys this stupid idea that they(as a class perpetrates of sexism) should be a better judge of sexism than the actual victims of sexism? same goes for any ism.
I think I’d like to add that if you really are trying to make an honest criticism of our culture then you’d have to concede that it is very sexist and therefore sexim permiates most things, like novels, hiring practices and beer commercials. This being the case pointing out the sexism in a beer commercial is no more petty than pointing the out the sexism in anything. For me realizing that sexism was so far reaching was like seeing through a totally new set of eyes. Once I knew it was there I couldn’t unsee it, and so I call it out instead. It’s probbably better that men trying to undersatnd and fix sexism realize the scope of its reach first.
We should set these whinyboys up with the fanbrats from Fandom Wank, who sit around all day bitching at everyone else and engaging in piranha behavior towards those other fans they think are petty and trivial…but don’t have *any* sense of humor whatsoever when this is turned back on them and it gently pointed out that if, indeed, we are foolish for arguing 4th vs 5th season Buffy and Spike characterizations, and wasting our time on something pointless, they don’t exactly have a leg to stand on, being engaged in even *less* substantial a pursuit. But the real point being that they think the world should revolve around *them* and nobody should pay any attention to anything that they’re not interested or care about an issue that they don’t care about.
It would be the group wedding made in hell.
“But blog posts like this are so illogical there must be some kind of Latin word for the error in logic they make. What is the phrase for an argument that disproves itself merely by existing? For if it’s petty to waste time writing blog posts protesting beer commercials that dehumanize women for having sexual intercourse, then surely it’s pettier to waste time to write blog posts whining about aforementioned blog posts.”
Uh, not really.
Here’s how the argument might go:
1) there exists a large number of intelligent potentially useful people with an issue
2) said people get hung up on some trivial tiny detail that is connected to their issue and exaggerate it entirely out of proportion
3) said exaggeration hurts their cause by making them look ridiculous and associates their legitimate concerns with a trivial non-issue, making them easy to discount
4) those who agree with the issue and would like to see it actually get attention try to get the group from 1 to stop obsessing on the stupid crap.
Makes a pretty good amount of sense.
To put it another way, what the author was griping about is not that some are griping about a pointless issue (which would indeed be an ironic point) but rather that there is a lot of wasted energy that could be channeled in much better directions.
When you’re on top you can be frivolous all you want with time and energy. When you’re on bottom though it looks more than a little self defeating to tilt at windmills.
*said people get hung up on some trivial tiny detail that is connected to their issue and exaggerate it entirely out of proportion *
Said people are not hung up said people are calling a spade a spade. A great blogger once said “Patriarchy blaming should be fun” and indeed it is. It is fun to make fun of petty sexism, it takes nothing from concentrating on the “big”issues.Indeed the big and small issues come from the same source, sexism has it’s hand in everything a little bit.
Guys just seem to think if a girl is mad about a beer commercial she must be mad in the same degree about sex slavery…again just a fear of female anger. Or maybe its that these guys think that if a girl voives concern about something she must be nagging or harping or making a bigdeal out of nothing. Don’t get so damn threatened,it’s hating on little commercial.
Not everyone sees it the way you do Carpenter. ANd their concerns are still legitimate.
Not if they are telling us to stop an important effort they aren’t.
“Tilting at windmills”?!? So, now writing a couple of blogposts is being equated with Making a Big Stand or Going On A Crusade or something, when it’s really just mentioning another freaking annoying piece of bullshit that gets thrown in our faces every day.
No, Tlaloc, that concern is NOT legitimate–it’s ludicrous to react as if any bit of criticism were tantamount to mounting a protest movement. The only people who are truly getting their knickers in a twist over this are the guys rushing in to defend the commercial. The rest of the people posting here are doing what they do every damn day, which is analyse and comment on things that have caught their attention.
CrysT I heart you.
Yes, if going on a blog and saying “this sucks” and having someone else go on and say “yeah, I though it sucked too” is overreacting then I can’t fathom vvhat isn’t overreacting, sticking my fingers in my ears and violently ignoring it? Pretending sexism isn’t rampant on TV or in fact that it hardly happens at all? Should feminists just never talk about sexism in commercials/the media? If I feellike taking a ‘poke’ at this commercial cause I feel it’s a minor evil in the universe and have a few mates join in why do you get so upset?
[…] UPDATE: And check out this terrific related post by Amanda at Pandagon, too. […]
When feminists fight for the rights and human treatment of women in Darfur, we are being proper “advocate for others” feminists. Laudible for our humanitarian efforts, but harmlessly undermining some other man’s disturbingly extreme patriarchy. To advocate for other “feminist” causes - either fringe stuff or stuff beyond our shores - is also to be at a distance from the privileges of the men around us, particularly when these causes seem boring, invisible, or tedious.
When women challenge substantive patriarchal things in their own culutre, whoh! Out of control! What’s your problem babe? Don’t ya know there are worse things you over there you should challenge? No longer the martyrdom, no longer the remove.
Double points in this department for challenging mass-market pop culture on it’s sexist stupidity. It isn’t that the issue at hand is trivial, like these defensives contend, but that it is about subject matter which is popular, well known and viewed, and therefore accessible for most Americans to take a second look in a new light. Way too close to home!
[…] It rhymes, sort of! This comment from a post by Amanda grabbed my attention. Yes, countless others, eloquenter than I have commented on it, but I need something to write about. For Mohamed! We have women on this planet with REAL PROBLEMS and we’re going to fill our list with entries about our clothes and our weight issues? […]
“I’ll Give You Something to Cry About�? Brilliant.
It’s a weak argument, and nobody that uses it ever applies the same standard to themselves.
Autorefutation.
As for whether examining advertising is petty or not… Would companies spend such vast amounts of money on it if it didn’t work? No. How does it work? By shaping your perceptions of the world at a subconcious level. IMHO, advertising is the most important form of media for shaping people’s perceptions in contemporary Western culture. It’s superceded actual human contact in terms of importance in shaping people’s view of the world. It’s there all the time, everywhere - it’s so omnipresent that your conscious mind tunes it out most of the time. And it works best by bypassing your conscious mind and all its defenses of rationality and critical thinking (if you have any), burying its hateful cargo in the subconscious to come blossoming out later - and by then you don’t even realise where the idea came from.
I’m with Bill Hicks on this: if you work in advertising, do us all a favour - kill yourself now. You are what’s wrong with the world.
Tlaloc, your inability to understand the phrase “tilting at windmills” has pretty much destroyed your ability to be taken seriously. “Tilting at windmills” means fighting phantoms. Beer commercials that promote the belief that men have some ownership over women’s bodies if they have sex with them are not phantoms. You may think it’s not “priority”, but it is certainly real.
Your notion, however, that feminist brains are so feeble we cannot both be angry at the the daily way the patriarchy establishes itself as well as the results of this is the more real problem. Domestic violence is a serious problem. It will also never go away unless men learn that they do not “own it” just because they “poked it”.
“Tilting at windmillsâ€??!? So, now writing a couple of blogposts is being equated with Making a Big Stand or Going On A Crusade or something, when it’s really just mentioning another freaking annoying piece of bullshit that gets thrown in our faces every day.”
Exactly. The original freaking post was a commentary on a stupid beer commercial and the obnoxious catch phrase that had sexist overtones. Did the post call for a boycott of the product? Nope. A petitition? Nope. A demonstration outside Miller headquarters? Nope. Yet, now all of the sudden that post has succeeded in somehow singlehandedly bringing down the feminist movement because so called “sympathetic” men will say, “Well I was against stuff like women getting the shit beat out of em until this bitch comes out and slams a beer commercial! These chicks don’t know when to quit.”
The “petty” and “I’ll give you something to complain about” arguments in tandem also seem to me to be a way to reinforce the “hysterical woman” stereotype. It’s a two-fer-one: They get to refute the argument without even having to engage it (because it’s too “petty” to even bother), plus they get to say, “Look at these women, letting their emotions get the best of them again and getting all worked up over nothing when there’s so much more to be concerned about. They need a man (i.e., me) to point them in the right direction.”
I’ll try again:
There’s two ways you can look at the issue. On the one hand you can say that sexism is (as amanda puts it) systemic and you have to try and counter it in detail. Every little piece, on all fronts, simultaneously. On the other hand you can say that there is no way in hell feminists have the resources to do even a half assed job of that and should concentrate on places where they can actually make a difference.
Both sides have good points. Valid points. There certainly is a systemic angle to the problem and the way that little sexist issues reinforce big sexist issues is a problem. But you do also have a very limited amount of time, money, and energy you can put toward this cause. There are places where you can make a big difference.
Someone mentioned above maternal leave. Big issue. Makes a huge difference in the lives of millions of women as well as millions of men and children. Absolutely a fight worth taking on.
Does anyone here get how a beer commercial doesn’t really rate compared to that? Seriously, not only is it not the same ballpark it isn’t the even a similar sport.
There are 57 responses to this thread alone. Via google I find close to 16000 sites that are found by looking for “you poke it you own it” and either ‘feminist’ or ‘feminism.’
16000.
Let’s conservatively say that an avergae of 15 minutes was spent on each. There’s 4000 man hours that might have been used a bit more productively. It adds up fast, huh?
Furthermore nobody bothered to address the other point I made which is that fighting this kind of issue makes it very easy for your opponents to paint you as raving nutters. To the average person the slogan is stupid and tacky but simply does not warrant this kind of reaction, precisely because it is far too unimportant to bother getting upset about.
You obviously feel differently. That’s fine, you certainly can. But you should stop and consider the matter from an pragmatism standpoint.
If you have 4000 man hours to devote to feminist issues do you use them
A) on a topic where success will mean a significant change, or
B) on a minor issue, where you will make no real difference even if you succeed and he effort makes it easier for you to lose ground in other areas?
Seems like an easy choice. I know it’s nice to get all fired up about things. It feels good. Gets the juices flowing. It is however a luxury you may regret when the bill comes due. Just think about it.
“There are 57 responses to this thread alone. Via google I find close to 16000 sites that are found by looking for “you poke it you own itâ€? and either ‘feminist’ or ‘feminism.’ 16000.
Let’s conservatively say that an avergae of 15 minutes was spent on each. There’s 4000 man hours that might have been used a bit more productively. It adds up fast, huh?”
Since ya like to have fun with numbers I might point out that you just wrote a 10+ paragraph post on a subject you deem unimportant. It’s your 3rd post on the unimportant topic in this thread. Add in your extensive research and you’ve seem to clocked quite a number of hours yourself on this unimportant topic. Ironic.
“Since ya like to have fun with numbers I might point out that you just wrote a 10+ paragraph post on a subject you deem unimportant.”
No I didn’t. I wrote a post on a subject that I consider important: effective use of limited resources. Notice that my argument is not about the specifics of the beer commercial. It is about the generalized case.
Furthermore I already covered this in my first post wherein I explained why Amanda is wrong in considering the author to be putting forth a self-refuting argument.
“No I didn’t. I wrote a post on a subject that I consider important: effective use of limited resources. Notice that my argument is not about the specifics of the beer commercial. It is about the generalized case.”
Okay, two things confuse me here. One is that you did make part of the argument about the commercial when ya googled the “you poke it you own it” phrase. That was the whole damn crux of the original post that set this thread in motion and was the part of your post that I quoted.
Second, the concept of effective use of limited resources is rather arbitrary to say the least. Who is to say what constitutes effective use or what constitutes limited resources for that matter? That’s where this whole argument gets iffy for me. In addition to the basic premise that it’s Amanda’s blog and she can bitch about whatever she damn well pleases without checking with the feminist relevance police, it has yet to be illustrated how exactly commenting on the possible sexist overtones in a segment of pop culture hurts any feminist cause.
I guess why this whole thing just annoys the hell out of me is because posts like “man law” are what makes this blog rock. It’s got a little of everything, it’s funny as hell, brilliantly written, and alot of times my eyes are opened to things I haven’t even noticed before. To sit here and say this blog (or any other) has to stick to predetermined feminist talking points is just crap, to put it simply. Ya wanna focus on a cause? Go forth and kick some ass, but why force someone else to follow the same script?
[…] Now commenter Tlacloc at pandagon whips out this weird idea; There are 57 responses to this thread alone. Via google I find close to 16000 sites that are found by looking for “you poke it you own itâ€? and either ‘feminist’ or ‘feminism.’ […]
“Okay, two things confuse me here. One is that you did make part of the argument about the commercial when ya googled the “you poke it you own itâ€? phrase. That was the whole damn crux of the original post that set this thread in motion and was the part of your post that I quoted.”
Maybe I phrased my response poorly. My argument is not specific to the commercial in the sense of only applying to the commercial. Rather it is a general argument about minutae using this specific instance as supporting evidence.
“Second, the concept of effective use of limited resources is rather arbitrary to say the least. Who is to say what constitutes effective use or what constitutes limited resources for that matter?”
Sure I think there is a large grey area in the center but things that are far out to the extremes are pretty identifiable. I.e. sex slavery, forced abortions, honor killings, and so on are pretty clearly on the ‘important’ end of the scale. Maternal leave and workplace discrimination are probably toward the important end but we could argue the matter. Dsproportionate government distribution of sexes (i.e. is the presiden’t cabinet 50% female?) probably unimportant but in the grey area too. Stupid beer comercial? Way into unimportant side.
Another way to look at it is that the importance/unimportance has to be guaged by how well the issue can be sold to the masses. You have a good shot of convincing joe blow that workplace inequality is a real problem and should be fixed. You have no chance of convincing them that a miller commercial is a big problem and needs to be addressed. And in focussing on that ‘problem’ you will convince them that you have no legitimate greivances.
” it has yet to be illustrated how exactly commenting on the possible sexist overtones in a segment of pop culture hurts any feminist cause.”
Really? I thought this very argument was a case in point of proving it. The cause is hurt when feminists make themselves look like clowns. *Whether they are right or wrong.* If they look stupid they turn off support. they forment internal conflict. they lose momentum and they give ammo to their opponents.
Do you really imagine the right can’t use this over-reaction to their advantage? Yeah they can.
“I guess why this whole thing just annoys the hell out of me is because posts like “man lawâ€? are what makes this blog rock.”
I guess the question then is which do you value more: a blog that “rocks” or actual progress? If in the process of rocking the blog inhibits progress which do you choose?
The problem with pedestals…
Kochanie very kindly sent me a link to Here’s the thing. One reason guys put women on pedestals, metaphorically speaking, is in hopes of (metaphorically or actually) sneaking a glimpse up their skirts. But here’s the thing: The sort of thinking that …
Responding to someone way up there: is there some particular reason that drinking beer automatically=unthinking quasi-macho dorkitude? When did this equation come about, exactly, anyway?
I guess the question then is which do you value more: a blog that “rocks� or actual progress?
Yeah Amanda, what the hell? Don’t you know that, by wasting precious, precious man-hours on your stupid, petty, insignificant little beer commercial critique, you have singlehandedly held back the vastly more important same-sex marriage movement? Not that you should be writing on that, either, since you should be focused with laser-like precision on female genital mutilation. Though really, that’s a criminal waste of much-needed resources so long as there is slavery still going on in the world. Not that you should bother with that little nothing, though, since it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that you should, through a combination of powerful stimulant drugs and a constantly-updating Pandagon comment window, be railing, railing I say, constantly at the brutality of not just that silly old slave trade, but the sex slave trade!
Anything less is really just a complete and total waste of your time, my time, the time of every other reader of this blog, the time of every single feminist and feminist supporter in the world, and a way of holding back the crusade against the single most important thing in the world, the sex slave trade.
Shit, did I say sex slave trade? I meant underage sex slave trade. Oh no, I myself have now wasted precious, irreplaceable man-hour resources!