Sexism on Imgur

So I spend a lot of my procrastination time browsing through imgur, especially the user submitted. It has some fun images and posts and it’s a good way to kill some time before starting a paper. Early on I noted that many of what I assume are straight men on imgur view themselves as “enlightened.” If a woman who was about 150 pounds with some sexy curves posted a pic of herself many of the comments would be about how that user, personally, thinks that her body is sexier than size zero bodies. Or you will commonly see someone post a picture of girls doing a duck face and those commenting will mercilessly ridicule the girls. Another commonly seen comment or post purports that the user prefers that one-in-a-million smart girl over a dumb hot girl. Seriously, one of those comments says, “Smart girls are awesome. Wish there were more around here” yeah because girls with intelligence are so FUCKING rare. Idiot. Anyway, despite their self-professed enlightenment regarding respect for women, I’ve found that there is still an overwhelming amount of users critiquing women and their bodies, dictating what a woman should and should not look like, and objectification of women. I’ve collected a few of the images that have pissed me off most. Here they are –

Despite their love of curvy women, certain body types get openly ridiculed

Other women are ridiculed for other things about their appearance

 

She’s fake and we hate her. Look how enlightened we are for hating women we think are fake. We’re better because we judge a different kind of women for how she looks than everyone else. Yay us.

Several things aggravate me about this previous post. First, in both cases women are “made for” men to do things with. They are made for men to write poems or jokes about, that’s it. Fucking hell. Seriously? Women aren’t made for anyone to do anything with. Women are born same as fucking men and we are born to do what we want with whomever we want. Secondly, the girl on the right is obviously responding to several of the high standards we place on women’s appearance here so critiquing her for responding to those standards, even if she responds extremely, is a little messed up. And third, the top voted comment on this pic as of right now is “Sad part is that somewhere, someone thinks she is the most beautiful thing on earth.” Seriously? Yeah, soooo tragic that someone could ever find a woman attractive because she doesn’t fit your personal standards. You do not get to dictate what is and is not attractive and you do not get to judge people for finding her attractive. You aren’t better than everyone because your preferred standards of women feels more natural or progressive to you than that of someone who will prefer the girl on the right. You’re still defining what is and is not attractive and what women should and should not look like and that makes you an asshat.

Meanwhile, the bodies of women who fit the men of imgur’s standards are reduced to objects for them to look at.

Jennifer Lawrence exists so you can stare at her tits when you’re having a bad week

These women aren’t athletes, they’re hot bodies for you to check out. Kudos to ifeelveryinsensitive though for getting back at exquisite2013

Meanwhile other hot women are assumed to be bitches

 

She’s hot so she has to be a bitch. They must have a terrible marriage. She’s not even that hot, she’s only good for her tits.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people on imgur who aren’t sexist and patriarchal. There are plenty who seem to genuinely respect women and their bodies but I see these posts and comments everywhere and it pisses me off. I’m so sick of hearing these comments that clearly show that these users think they’re better than other people and are more enlightened when it comes to respecting women but they aren’t. They think being respectful means calling hot girls probable bitches, critiquing women who dress and style themselves a certain way, and telling smart and curvy girls that they’re better. But they’re still dictating what women should look and act like and it’s not okay. It’s not respectful. And you need to shut the hell up.

On a related note, I’ve also noticed a hefty amount of racism on imgur despite the fact that many users similarly feel they are more enlightened about race. However, I think I’ll have to make that a separate post from this one.

Entitled Man-children

I just saw a post calling guys who say they’re “friend-zoned” “entitled man-children.” I just about died. That is such a good way to explain it. Because though there are some issues in the Best Friend – Bad Boy complex most of the complaints I see from guys being friend-zoned are from whiny, entitled, man-children. So many complaints lament that the girl is going for a guy who’s a jerk or whatever which is fine if you’re chasing Kate Winslet’s character in The Holiday but you’re probably not. The guys I know who say they’re friend-zoned often don’t make a legitimate effort for the girl’s affections. They act like a friend but never do or say anything that let’s the girl know they’re interested in more. And often, though the guy might seem like a jerk to the friend-zoned, he’s probably not that bad. Maybe he’s a little cocky or a bit of a tool or something but you’re not with the couple every second they’re together and he could treat her well. Plus a lot of the friend-zoned population’s complaints imply that girls should pick them over the jerks because they deserve the girl more, because the girl somehow owes them something. Well god forbid a girl thinks you’re just being a good friend. She’s clearly a terrible person for not choosing you because she owes you now for being nice to her because that’s not something anyone does ever with no ulterior motives. Okay sorry for the rant. I just really like the term “entitled man-children” for boys who are too whiny about not getting the girl

http://jezebel.com/my-so-called-post-feminist-life-in-arts-and-letters-472204294

An awesome article off Jezebel!

Proposed Tennessee bill would cut welfare benefits when kids fail at school

This bill and the people supporting it fall under the “sometimes I feel the need to gouge my eyes out” category. Seriously? How do people not think these things through? You’re a politician. Your job is to resolve social issues, not exasperate them.

Michelle Alexander: Drug War Racism

Video of Michelle Alexander talking about her recent book “The New Jim Crow” and her research about racism in the war on drugs and the prison system in general. It’s very interesting and compelling.

“Accidental Racist” Brad Paisley ft LL Cool J

This is the WORST song EVER. Seriously. Not only does the actual sound of the music and melody make me want to gouge my eyes out but the lyrics are messed up too. I mean okay, I get it Brad. You’re from the South and you’re looking for a way to say you’re proud of where you’re from while still acknowledging some of the shitty things that happened there. That’s legit, but it’s still rather naive and messed up. Like, the man you address in the very first lyric of the song, whom I assume is supposed to be black because you’re apologizing to him about your Lyrnrd Skynyrd shirt which probably has a confederate flag on it, is serving you at a Starbucks. I mean, if you’re trying to make a point, making the one fictional black man in your song serve you, probably not the best plan? Maybe?  The whole message of the song is “let’s forget the civil war and be friends.” Here’s the thing though,we should not forget “the iron chains” as LL Cool J suggests. Forgetting slavery is not helpful. We need to remember the trauma, the terror, the absolute wrong of slavery. It reminds us of where racism in our country began. It reminds us of the severe social and economic issues that persist today as a result from slavery and continued racism. The civil war is not the last time black people were mistreated; discriminated against, or victims of violence. Violence and discrimination against black people continued to be present after the Civil War up to present day. And not just in the South. So though I really believe that Brad Paisley sincerely wanted to make a song addressing problems of race, I don’t think he understands how or why his song is so problematic.  Paisley’s ignorance as to why the song is problematic is something that should be addressed. He and others need to see why people take issue with the song. They need to understand why the message and language he uses is problematic because that is the base of the song. He is singing about his Southern pride and how that might be perceived as racist and how he doesn’t always understand why. Well, people are trying to tell you why Brad, listen.

Here is a good blog post from NPR talking about it.

The Pinterest Woman

I recently wrote a paper and did a presentation for a class about Pinterest and how it is used and for this post I thought I’d share that work with you.

First, some quick facts about Pinterest.  Eighty percent of Pinterest’s users are female and 50 percent of users have kids.  The age groups with the highest amount of users are people age 25-34 at 30 percent, followed by ages 18-24 at 17 percent and then ages 35-44 at 16 percent. The top interests on Pinterest are crafts, gifts, hobbies and leisure, interior design, and fashion. Pinterest users who shop online follow more retailers than Facebook and Twitter users. Turtorial, DIY, and recipe pins have a click rate that is 42 percent higher than that of other types of pins. And finally, Pinterest users spend more. When someone is referred to a product through Pinterest they spend 70 percent more than people referred from non-social channels. Shoppers referred by Pinterest are ten percent more likely to make a purchase than visitors who arrive from other social networks and they will spend ten percent more.

Above is a screenshot I took form the Popular pins page which just shows the most popular pins based on how many people comment, like, and/or repin them. What I’ve noticed on Pinterest is that the most popular and most common pins relate to a sort of Martha Stewart-esque ideal of women. The most common pins are about home décor, staying fit and dressing well, crafting and cooking, and marriage and family. These pins create an image of the ideal woman, an image that is created and reinforced by the women using the site. During the rest of the post I will occasionally use the term “Pinterest Woman,” this refers to the ideal woman whose image is created through the most common and popular pins on Pinterest.

Home Décor

The prominence of home décor pins creates an emphasis on purchasing and consumerism. People are posting images of amazing pantries and rooms and furniture that they want to buy to have a perfect home and many of these things are rather expensive. That bath would not be a cheap thing to remodel and the glass sculpture has to be at least several hundred dollars. Furthermore, there are a lot of pins of refurbished furniture which means you not only have to buy the dresser or table shown in this screenshot but also the materials to refurbish the furniture. Plus you have to have the skill to do the refurbishing.

Body and Style

Body and style pins also promote a culture of consumerism. Obviously the emphasis on fashion and clothing on Pinterest encourages spending to keep your wardrobe current and fashionable. And I’d like to point out that, at least in my experience, many of the pins are designer clothes or from stores that have a price level equivalent to that of Urban Outfitters or higher (and for people who are not hipsters, a kind of poor quality shirt at Urban can run as high as 50 or 60 dollars). But the pins with fitness and healthy eating also require spending. Often healthier foods can be more expensive, recommendations on how to keep your skin or hair healthy usually require you to buy products or often enough random grocery items. In addition to this consumer culture, the emphasis on remaining slim and fit and on dressing and styling oneself well sets very high standards for women. She has to eat healthy and work out often to keep a “perfect” slim body type as evidenced by the popularity of workout pins and pins about healthy recipes. This slim body requirement is also reinforced in the fashion pins where all the women are very thin and wearing clothes that can only be worn by thin women. The women in the health and fashion pictures are always thin, most often white, and always fully styled with hair and makeup and this is an ideal the Pinterest Woman must meet.

Crafting and Cooking

Crafting and cooking pins also set high standards for women. The crafts and recipes in these pins are crazy. Look at that candle thing! Who has time to make that? And I’m sorry, I’m supposed to make my teacher soap now? Soap? Sorry, no. And those cupcakes! It would take me hours to make and decorate those cupcakes and they still wouldn’t look half as good. These recipes and crafts require a very high skill level and set very high standards like the body and style pins do. There is an entire website devoted to pictures of people failing at attempts to cook or craft something they saw on Pinterest. Not only do these crafts and recipes require a high skill level but they also require a massive time commitment. In order to bake and cook and craft the amount that the Pinterest Woman appears to be baking and cooking and crafting she would have to devote as much if not more time to these activities as what a full time job would require of her time. I would argue that in order to craft, cook, bake, and workout to the extent that the pins suggest she is crafting, cooking, baking, and working out Pinterest Woman could not be able to work, at least not full time. Not if she wants to sleep ever.

Marriage and Family

And that brings me to the marriage and family pins. There is definitely a strong heteronormative presence on Pinterest. A lot of pins revolve around weddings, which I consider at this point in time is something that reflects a heteronormative ideal because in most places in the US only straight couples can marry. There are lots of pictures of babies and kids and a lot of the crafting and cooking pins revolve around ideas for you to do with or for your kid(s). It is important for the Pinterest Woman to get married and have kids. Adding the time and efforts it takes to raise a child to the aforementioned time commitment of crafting, cooking, and working out and then taking into account the emphasis on consumerism that I mentioned with body and style pins and home décor pins I imagine this woman would have to be a stay at home mother with a husband who earns enough money on his own for them to qualify as middle or upper middle class at the very least.

So these common pins create an image of a middle to upper middle class white woman who is fit, perfectly styled and dressed, has a great ability for crafting, cooking, and baking, and lives in a nice home with nice things. And these pins are pinned primarily by women; we are creating this ideal image for ourselves that is restrictive with high standards that are nearly impossible to meet. And my question is why? Why are women on Pinterest, including myself to an extent, creating an image of an ideal woman that is so restrictive? This is possibly part of a return to domesticity that has been going on, as far as I could tell from what I’ve read, since the early 90s. There are these two major schools of thought about how to deal with the dichotomies associated with males and females and the hierarchies that are associated with them – reason vs emotion or civilization vs nature for example where the first idea in each example is associated with males and valued more than the second idea which is associated with females. One side argues that women should claim the values associated with masculinity, to be more like men to demonstrate equality. Practically, this would involve getting into the workforce and the corporate world and moving away from private, household work and into a more public space. Others feel that this method doesn’t address the “problematic value structure” involved in this dichotomy so women should instead reclaim and reinforce the value in these feminine traits and activities. This disagreement gave rise to a trend in the media called “The Mommy Wars” where women in the workplace condemn stay–at-home moms for going back on the advances of second wave feminism while stay-at-home moms argue that bottle feeding, day care, and other things that allow women to work are harmful to children. This debate continues recently with the “Are You Mom Enough?” TIME magazine cover or the “Lean In” debate.

Underlying this debate is the fact that the choice to work or not to work is only available to those of a high socioeconomic status. Those from stable, high income households are the only ones to whom this choice is available. This is where the fact that Pinterest often seems rather white-washed becomes relevant. White families disproportionately maintain a higher socioeconomic status that the families of people of color. Pinterest gives us a sort of Reagan era vision of the world where people live in this illusion that we’re all middle and upper middle class and race and poverty aren’t issues anymore. And that is obviously not true.

In an article that interviews some prominent figures in crafting, cooking, and home decorating (one of whom was Martha Stewart), the women interviews argue that women became unhappy in the workplace. They longed for a traditional housewife role, for the comforts of the home and staying at home. And maybe it’s true. But the choice isn’t available to all of us. From a personal standpoint, I think I would really like being able to stay home and bake and decorate my home as long as I still had independent intellectual outlets as basic as reading books or attending classes occasionally. But I can’t do that. I go to school full time and work 35 hours a week to pay for rent, tuition, food, etc. so Pinterest for me is a sort of wish list. It’s the clothes and books and random things I would buy if I could afford them and the things I would cook and bake if I had time to make anything other than Spaghettios. And though I don’t know for sure I imagine that Pinterest plays a similar role for most people. A way to keep in touch with the traditionally feminine values that we may not have as much access to now that most of us have moved to working outside the home.

Also it’s a way to share funny e-cards.

Allen, Amy. “’Mommy Wars’ Redux: A False Conflict.” The New York Times. May 27,2012.

Gordon, Meryl. “Heart-Shaped Wreaths, Perfume-Sprayed Notepaper, Ribbon-Wrapped Linens – Is This What Women Want? (Product Expressing Feminity, Traditional Female Values).” Working Woman. September 1, 1991.