Reading Joe. My. God. this morning, I came across an article featuring the “creepiest cell phone ad ever,” and it was indeed creepy, and disgusting, so I felt the need to rant about it for a moment. Have you ever seen/experienced something that just repulsed you? Left you with crawling skin and an urgent need to smack something? That’s kind of how I felt after watching that ad.

For those of you who don’t feel like watching the ad (and my visually impaired readers), it opens with a woman lying in a bed, wearing a negligee and loosely covered in sheets. Then, the shot goes wide, and we see a man in a window across the way, looking into her bedroom. He raises his cell phone, takes a picture, and then starts, uhm, using the touch screen on the cell phone to manipulate the woman. At the close of the ad, her fire sprinklers go off, and she sits up in bed and apparently thinks “fire sprinklers are hot sexytime fun,” as opposed to “oh my God, my house is on fire,” so she writhes around with a sultry expression. Then, the man’s phone rings, and it turns out to be his mother, and the ad fades out with the woman in the bed again, and the tagline “keep a secret.” Did I mention that the guy is licking his lips while manipulating the phone? Because he is.

As I watched the ad, my discomfort level rose to hitherto unknown levels, and I found myself increasingly disgusted and distressed. So much so, in fact, that I found it hard to even begin articulating why the ad bothered me so much.

Oh, let’s start with the idea that women are just playthings for voyeurs, as one of the commenters pointed out, and that it is apparently totally acceptable to peep into the windows of attractive women while they sleep. And yeah, being manipulated remotely via a complete stranger (we assume, from the context of the ad), yeah, that’s also apparently totally cool. And, you know. Hot. It’s a rape fantasy for the electronic age, complete with the idea that every woman secretly wants it, and I hope that every woman (and everyone else) who sees it is very not-secretly horrified by it.

It makes me wonder what market the commercial was aimed at. Is it meant to spark controversy and horror to draw attention to the brand of cellphone being advertised? Was it intended to end up on the sorts of sites where people exchange gross, disgusting, exploitative videos? Was it never meant for general release at all? I’m not sure, but whatever the origins of the ad, I wish it would climb back into them.

Several of the queer commenters on the thread related to the advertisement also pointed out that ads like this are much more acceptable than ads with gay sexual themes. Had the scene depicted a female voyeur, or a man lying in the bed, it probably would have sparked controversy. Apparently, only heterosexual women are allowed to be the subjects of televised rape fantasies and virtual abuse.

I need to go take a shower now.

“FEMINIST HOPES DASHED,” the headline on the newspaper sprawled out across the table in the Coffeehouse screamed. I had stopped in, as I do now and then, and spotted some old friends sitting in the back, reading the paper. I sat with them for awhile, talking about this and that, and somehow the discussion came around to politics, as it so often does, and we expressed dismay over the headline.

If there’s one thing about this election that’s pissed me off, it’s the characterization of feminists and feminism which has sprawled throughout the media, giving all of us a bad name. A very small and vocal minority has created an ideal topic for articles by being completely insane, allowing the media to generalize, creating the idea that all feminists are crazy.

“For years,” I was explaining to my friends, “I was reluctant to call myself a feminist because of the crazed antics of some radical feminists. And then, I realized that it’s really important to identify as a feminist, to show that there is a broad cross-section of ideas and ways of thinking in the feminist movement.”

It causes me to foam at the mouth when I read headlines like the one above, suggesting that because a crappy female candidate failed to hoodwink the country into voting for her, feminists nation-wide are crushed. There’s no hope for women in politics. Feminism is dead.

Now, for sure, there are some feminists who are very bummed out right now, and there are also some things about this election that bummed me out, as a feminist. There was a whole lot of sexism going on, and it was not only broadly accepted, but even a topic of joking and funtime. People showed up at Clinton rallies with shirts that said “make me a sandwich,” and I assure you that if someone had showed up at an Obama speech with a shirt that said “go pick my cotton,” there would have been widespread outrage. I’m not sad because Clinton lost, but I am sad that so much blatant sexism was allowed to pass without comment or discussion.

This election definitely illustrated, for me, the vast work which still lies ahead for the feminist movement. The fact that Clinton’s gender was used against her was awful, and despicable, and it makes me extremely angry to see how many people just totally missed this, or ignored it as not important. It is important that a major female contender for the Presidential nomination was treated as a laughingstock, and that is an issue which should be addressed. It is important that outspoken female supporters for Clinton got called “stupid cunts,” and got messages on their YouTube videos talking about how much the commenters wanted to rape them. This, my homechickens, is not ok.

But, ultimately, she lost the election not because she is a woman, but because she is a Clinton, and this needs to be accepted. There was nastiness which also needs to be addressed, to be certain, but people who are deluded into thinking that the election was solely about gender need to rethink their positions.

And, let me tell you, nothing infuriates me more than the lunatic fringe of women who claim that they will vote for McCain over Obama. This isn’t just a profound insult; it’s a smear on the face of the feminist movement, and ultimately, it’s self-harming. I don’t care how bitter you are, as a woman, a vote for McCain is a vote to go back to the kitchen and cook some pies until you get pregnant. It’s a vote against the huge gains for women’s rights which have been made in the last century. It’s a vote which says that women should not have control of their own bodies and destinies. And it’s a vote which tells people that feminists are so crazy that they would rather shoot themselves in the vagina (or wherever) than vote for Obama, and that’s just bad public relations.

For the love of Pete, women, don’t vote for McCain. Not just because it would be a bad choice for you personally, and it would, and because it would be a horrible choice for America, but because if McCain wins, the disaffected feminist bloc is going to be blamed for it, and that really will dash the hopes of feminists, by setting the feminist movement back 40 years, to the era when feminists were all viewed as deluded bra-less idiots. And even if you don’t care about being viewed as a lunatic fringe, how about respecting the work of thousands of women who are trying to legitimize feminism, who are trying to actively fight for women’s rights, who are trying to make a concrete, actual difference in the world?

According to the Washington Post, in Britain, where people apparently are willing to tolerate millions of CCTV cameras because they are “good for safety,” the rape conviction is shockingly low. I’d say a decline from roughly 30% in the 1970s to just over 5% today is pretty depressing, and also pretty telling. (Compare that with rates in the United States, which hover around 15% of reported cases resulting in conviction.) I would be be really interested to see an estimate on the number of rape cases which are actually reported in Britain, although I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s low, just like it is here.

The Washington Post article raised a couple of issues of interest for me, as a reader.

The first was to wonder what in the heck is being done with all of the miles of CCTV footage being collected in Britain. I mean, the presence of CCTV is justified by arguing that it makes it easier to track down criminals, and that it enables the prosecution and successful conviction of crimes in Britain. CCTVs are everywhere, and they are mute, all-seeing witnesses which happen to be much more reliable than people, thanks to the fact that they record information immutably and without judgment.

Now, obviously, every single rape in Britain isn’t caught on CCTV, but it does seem like actually using that footage might have some positive benefit on the conviction rate. This seems to be a common trend with security footage; the cameras are put in place to intimidate people, and so forth, but the footage is never actually used, which makes me wonder what the point is. It also gives me further fuel for opposition to the use of CCTV and other camera security systems.

Also, I was really interested in the cultural issues discussed in the article, like the results of a survey which found that “as many as one in two young men believe there are some circumstances when it’s okay to force a woman to have sex,” which was pretty mindboggling to me. Or an account of a recent case in which a 28 year old man raped a 10 year old girl and got two years in prison for it…because she dressed suggestively. Please, if you could, tell me how a 10 year old girl can dress suggestively, how a 10 year old girl can be “asking for it.”

But I’m not so sure that Britons have different attitudes about rape than we do. The article was obviously meant to be an analysis of British culture, not American culture, so there were no convenient compare and contrast sidebars, but it would be interesting to compare and contrast results of surveys and other methods of data collection in the two countries. I mean, I read this article and think “good lord, how I do not want to be a woman in Britain,” but I wonder how much better things are here.

After all, date rape is probably the biggest issue in both countries. Now, California happens to have pretty specific laws about forced sexuality, including a law which pretty much explicitly states that no means no, whereas the article didn’t delve that deeply into the law, leaving me with kind of an incomplete picture. I think that California’s laws have made it much easier to prosecute date and acquaintance rape, whereas it may well be that while British law enforcement would like to see more convictions, their hands may be tied by the law. As the article informed me, prosecutors can’t even meet with rape victims in Britain before the case comes to trial, which seems like a pretty big obstacle to getting a solid case in place.

Also, sexism and a double standard around sexuality is obviously present in both nations. I know plenty of Americans who think that there are circumstances in which a woman is “asking for it,” so that attitude is hardly restricted to Britain, especially when it comes to drunk young women trying to have a good time at parties or out on the town. In Britain’s case, it seems like sexism may have paralyzed the legal system, but I would argue that our own legal system’s approach to rape isn’t perfect, either. Depending on where you are and who you are, it can be very difficult to get someone to even take a report, let alone bring the case to trial.

I don’t think there’s an easy solution to fixing low conviction rates for rapes, but this article certainly gave me some food for thought, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that it spurs some reforms in the British legal system’s approach to rape cases. I sure hope so.

Poor Hillary Clinton. Her campaign’s not even dead yet, and it’s already being autopsied in the media, with headlines like “Gender issue lives on as Clinton’s hope dims.” I don’t particularly like her, and I didn’t like her campaign at all, but I honestly feel sorry for her, both as a person and as a candidate.

Clinton has had a rough campaign. I don’t like her politics, and my lack of support for her stemmed from a general dislike to go along with her positions (and her profound lack of ethics), but she also faced a lot of misogyny. Obama, of course, has dealt with his share of racism, which also sucks, but I do think that the misogyny has been just as internalized, insidious, and widespread as the racism in this campaign. At least Obama didn’t get assaulted by the fashion police every time he appeared in public. The fact of the matter is that a lot of people did attack Clinton because she’s a woman, not because her politics suck, and that makes me really sad.

I would have liked to see a lady candidate I could really get behind and support, because, yes, I do think it would be awesome to have a woman as President, just I think it would be marvelous to have anyone who isn’t a white, middle-aged Christian male as President, for the sake of variety. And this campaign has really made me feel torn, as someone with lady bits, because I feel like I’m condemned for not supporting her because I’m betraying the sisterhood, while women who do support her are being condemned for blindly following the sisterhood instead of thinking for themselves, when in fact pro and con Clinton camps have very good, well thought-out reasons for their opinions.

I hate, hate, hate that the media is acting like Clinton’s defeat spells the end of women in politics, because it doesn’t. Clinton was a poor candidate, and that’s why she’s getting hammered right now; not because she’s a woman, but because she’s a Clinton. Because she played dirty, because her politics were divisive, and because she just wasn’t (in my opinion) right for America. There are lots of powerful, smart, awesome ladies in politics right now, and their numbers are likely to grow in the coming years, with or without Clinton.

Most of my friends, for some reason or another, all have little boys instead of little girls, but if they did have little girls, I have every confidence that those girls could grow up to be President, if that’s what they wanted to be. It’s sad that this campaign has involved a lot of poisonous sexism and racism, because I imagine that’s pretty hard for younger minds to deal with: I can look at a Clinton rally and see someone wearing a stupid “do my laundry shirt” and just be amused and sad, whereas a young girl might have a tougher time dealing with that image.

It makes me angry that Clinton has tried to make herself out as a victim, crying “misogyny” instead of simply admitting that she is a poor candidate in a lot of ways, but, at the same time, to act like her gender isn’t an issue is just plain stupid. Obviously it’s an issue, obviously there are people who didn’t vote for her solely because she’s a woman (just as people didn’t vote for Obama because he’s black), and that really, really sucks. It sucks that a successful female politician is, by nature, going to have to be twice as awesome as her male counterparts to buck misogynistic stereotypes, and it sucks that people think it’s ok to assault Clinton on the basis of how she looks and dresses.

Because, in the end, this distracts from the fundamental issue, which is that people had some very good, strong reasons for not wanting to support Clinton, and those reasons had nothing to do with what’s between her legs and what she wears to debates. Gender and racism have become huge issues in this election, and not in a positive getting-society-to-think kind of way, but in a negative, distracting kind of way.

That, in my humble opinion, is a travesty.

So apparently everyone is exploding over the Vanity Fair cover featuring Miley Cyrus, because it’s all exploitative and shocking and it “might as well be porn.” I wasn’t going to comment on this issue, but since it popper up everywhere, I sighed and went to Wikipedia to figure out who in the heck Miley Cyrus is, and then I went to Vanity Fair to get the goods on the picture in question.

It turns out that Miley Cyrus is one of the many teen stars groomed by Disney to make obscene amounts of money for their franchise, and to remind Americans that our goal is to be mindless consuming automatons, capturing that all-important tween market which eats up daddy and mommy’s money like Loki snarfs down Zuke’s Cat Treats. Apparently she’s an actress/singer, and it seems like she’s doing pretty well for herself, although I don’t think I’ll be running out to watch/listen/buy/come into contact with anything she’s in anytime soon. The real bone of contention with the picture has to do with the fact that’s she 15.

Go look at the picture. Seriously. I promise it won’t offend you, considering that all you really see is a young woman wrapped in a silky thing with her hair all tousled and her shoulderblade exposed. It was shot by Annie Leibovitz. Maybe you’ve heard of her? She is, uhm, kind of famous for producing amazing and very intimate images.

So everyone’s freaking out about this picture because they think it’s sexualized, and this bothers them, because Cyrus is not of legal age, and obviously when someone’s not wearing a shirt, it means that they are sexy, but it’s not ok to think that 15 year olds are sexy. Because, you know, ew, they’re children so you should think of them as mewling infants, if you think of them at all, and definitely don’t think of them as human beings. Apparently that little shot of shoulderblade is getting people all kinds of hot and bothered, but pictures of said star in a revealing bikini are totally cool, as are lesbotastic photos of her and a friend (do a Google Image Search, man, it’ll make your day). Now she’s apologizing for the “embarrassing” photos in Vanity Fair, after saying “I think it’s really artsy…It wasn’t in a skanky way” in the feature article that goes with the photo of doom, and Disney’s cracking down on her for posing in a photograph which proves, once and for all, that 15 year olds do have shoulderblades. And than 15 year olds who are too thin have visible ribs.

So, here’s the thing. She is a bit sexed up in the picture, with hair and makeup which are obviously designed to make her look older. And Leibovitz is kind of known for pushing the envelope with portrait photography; she’s clearly not afraid of a little controversy, and she is well aware of the power of symbolism in photography. And it is a fact in this society that for young women to advance their careers in the entertainment industry, they pretty much have to appear half naked on the cover of some magazine or another. But the brouhaha over the image is just absurd.

I don’t know Cyrus, so I don’t know how well the picture captures her and her personality. To me, it comes off as a little cold and distant, but there’s also a hint of shyness and insecurity about it which I think is actually rather charming. The photo really brings out her features, which are a smidge old-fashioned, and I like that too. It’s a pretty picture, fundamentally. I wouldn’t make it my desktop or anything, but it’s nice, and it certainly doesn’t make me think “man, I should have sex with Miley Cyrus.”

I don’t know about you, but when I look at the picture, I see a work of art, not pornography. And on the heels of yesterday’s post about the difference between fantasy and reality, I feel obliged to point out that pictures of nude children are not necessarily bad. Pictures of nude children in pornographic situations=bad. Artistic photographs which cover more than most clothes these days? Not bad, and in fact I would call the Cyrus portrait a legitimate work of art.

It made me sad to read Cyrus’ tearful press release about the shoot, because I think she caved to pressure from Disney, who told her that she needs to retain the image of a virginal teen angel…despite the fact that leaked and very unflattering personal photos of her can be found all over the Internet. She claims that Vanity Fair misled her, Vanity Fair claims that she knew what was up, and so did her parents, who were at the site of the shoot and saw the images. It’s pretty clear that she consented, and so did her minders, so to recant now is just silly. In fact, the photograph of Cyrus and her father is a lot creepier than the infamous shoulderblade shot, in my opinion, and that apparently got the greenlight all round.

It’s pretty obvious that Disney treats Cyrus and its other young starts like personal property, and that’s a major bummer. Vanity Fair pretty much nailed it with “That said, I can’t imagine that her minders at the Walt Disney Company want to see Miley Cyrus’s name anywhere near the word “sex,” not in an era when every under-age actress in Hollywood is stalked by the Ghost of Britney Future. And not when so much money is riding on this one’s continued public innocence.” I’m not sure that media exposure of this level is the healthiest thing for any 15 year old, but I think that Cyrus probably enjoyed the shoot, appreciated the fact that she came out looking more mature, and probably regrets her statement about regretting her participation in the shoot. Too bad she’s firmly under Disney’s thumb.

Of course, let’s not forget that the whole brouhaha has attracted insane amounts of attention: just the thing to kick a young star’s career to the next level. And maybe that was the goal all along.

You do know that photographs in fashion mags are heavily altered before publication, right? I always assume that this is common knowledge, but I wasn’t aware of how heavily modified some images are until I checked out some before and after comparisons (click on ‘portfolio’). Looking at those images was quite eye opening, as I suddenly realized that all of the porcelain dolls I see on magazine covers have skin that’s actually a lot like mine, with small blemishes and natural imperfections. And that even “perfect” actresses and models are altered before being placed in the public eye.

I find that pretty depressing, myself. We constantly rail on about the unrealistic beauty standard promoted by the fashion industry, but it’s kind of a shock to be actually confronted with it. Of course, I knew that image manipulation happens, but I don’t think I realized the extent of such manipulation. It certainly didn’t occur to me that even for the perfect, there is no perfection, thanks to this crazy society we live in.

Yesterday, this article was published in the Telegraph, and the fatosphere started responding, along with feminist bloggers. For those of you who don’t feel inclined to read the article, the short version is that many fashion magazines are starting to alter images of models and actresses to make them seem less thin. And I stress “less thin,” although the Telegraph opted for “fatter,” because these women aren’t fat, they are still thin. Very, very thin.

My response to the article was mixed. On the one hand, I thought it was interesting that magazines are actually altering images to make their subjects look larger, although still nowhere close to real women. On the other hand, it depressed me to think that these magazines have chosen to cover up the real consequences of dangerous thinness, probably in response to rising public outcry about the issue, and to make them seem more attractive.

As Ann says in the post at Feministing, if you want pictures of healthy models, hire healthy models, rather than modifying photographs of unhealthy models to make them look healthier. This seems pretty straightforward to me. She also made a very good point when she discussed the fact that extremely thin women don’t actually look that attractive, what with tiny breasts and bottoms, and jutting bones, so altering their images encourages people to pursue a thin look without revealing the physical cost.

Image manipulation of this type is simply a clear, blatant, lie. It conceals an important reality: the fact that anoretics have sallow, nasty skin, ashy hair, jutting bones, and a variety of other grotesque symptoms. The reality is that if you want to be as thin as the people in magazines, you’re going to look awful, but you might not realize that, since the truth is concealed from you.

The fashion industry is brutal for people on the inside, and pretty awful for those of us on the outside who are still influenced by it. I’m not sure what kind of message photoshopping to add flesh might be sending, but I don’t think it’s good, and I would love to see even one fashion magazine use honest, unaltered images straight from the camera. Just for once, it would be nice to see the truth, rather than an elaborately constructed fiction.

There seems to be growing awareness that maybe being extremely thin is dangerous, and some action is even being taken, like banning anorexic fashion models from fashion shows. Yet, at the same time, I see casual references to the “obesity epidemic” everywhere I look. I wonder if anyone’s left in the middle anymore, when a size eight is fat, all the models are all under size zero, and even they aren’t perfect enough for the exacting standards of the fashion industry.

Sometimes, my posts about irritation with modern society just write themselves, and this was definitely the case when I encountered this Newsweek article about a children’s book explaining plastic surgery. It’s called “My Beautiful Mommy,” and it kind of makes me want to vomit.

Ostensibly, the book is designed to be marketed to mothers who are considering plastic surgery and want to be able to explain what’s happening to their young children. I get that. I can imagine it would be weird when your parents undergo medical procedures and don’t explain it, and it can be scary, so being able to talk about it would probably be really beneficial for young children, taking the fear of the unknown out of the equation.

But has plastic surgery for mothers become so commonplace that we need a children’s book to explain it? The outrageometer says yes, because obviously mothers have gross, disgusting, nasty sagging tummies and breasts, and no one will ever love them unless they resort to dangerous invasive surgical procedures to make them smooth, firm, and tight again.

I’ve noticed that mothers seem to be in for it more and more these days. First, they’re expected to lose their baby weight post haste, because baby weight makes you FAT and no one wants to look at fat people, even if they did just grow a human being. And now, apparently, mothers are supposed to surgically correct the somewhat inevitable results of pregnancy, thereby even further disguising the evidence that they gave birth to children.

Now, I don’t have children, so maybe I’m missing something here, but I feel like parenthood is a source of pride and personal identity for many people. So why would you want to conceal the fact that you are a parent? And why would you want a partner who erases all evidence of having born children, despite the fact that the children are (presumably) still in your lives?

A friend of mine once told me that he always thinks that women who haven’t had children look incomplete or unfinished somehow. He didn’t mean it in an insulting way (really), and he made a valid point; hormonal changes during pregnancy do change your body in certain ways, and some of those changes endure. From an evolutionary standpoint, it would make sense to be attracted to women who exhibit characteristics associated with pregnancy, because it means that they are fertile, which makes it kind of doubly sad that mothers now apparently feel like they need to cover up the evidence when they have children.

I’m opposed to plastic surgery in general, except in the case of reconstructive surgery after serious injuries or accidents, or in the case of surgery to correct congenital birth defects which cause pain or extreme embarrassment, or hinder someone’s ability to live. By all means, fix cleft palates and give burn victims new skin, but why hack the bodies of healthy people to satisfy some insane beauty standard?

Not having been pregnant, I don’t know what it’s like to experience the physical and hormonal changes associated with pregnancy and its aftermath. And I can definitely understand a sense of frustration or unhappiness with one’s body after pregnancy, because it has undergone some major changes. But I feel like it’s something that people should ride out, rather than correcting surgically. I know lots of mothers with washboard abs and firm, high breasts who came by them naturally, illustrating that it is, in fact, possible to tone your body back into shape after pregnancy, if that’s what you want to do.

It makes me incredibly sad that our solution to the complex emotions which women experience after surgery is to sweep them under the rug, to hack their bodies apart so they look “normal again.” What kind of society do we live in?

The Australian RSPCA is apparently raising quite a few eyebrows with a new advertisement in which viewers see a woman being abused while a dog cries in the background. Supposedly, the ad has reduced some viewers to tears, and it’s already generated rather a lot of controversy, despite the fact that it hasn’t officially aired yet.

The ad is part of an ongoing campaign which is designed to remind Australians that the RSPCA is about a lot more than “rescuing kittens from trees,” and I think it’s a message that deserves to be more widely broadcast, because the fact of the matter is that animal welfare organizations do a lot more than just rescuing animals and finding new forever homes for them.

Many have programs like First Strike, the Humane Society of the United States field program which looks at the link between cruelty to animals and violence towards people. The fact of the matter is that people who abuse animals are a lot more likely to abuse people, with an estimated 37% of animal abusers moving on to humans. And I’m not just talking about slapping people around: most serial killers started with animals.

That’s a chilling fact, and I think it’s one that people really don’t think about enough. People don’t think about it because it is scary, and disturbing, and sad. I think most people agree that animal cruelty really sucks, and shouldn’t happen, but it’s probably hard to make the leap, to realize that because animal cruelty is so closely interconnected with human violence, it’s not just nice to stop animal cruelty, it’s a moral imperative.

Thanks to animal welfare organizations, a lot of law enforcement agencies now have extensive education in animal cruelty, and animal cruelty is taken far more seriously today than it was even 10 years ago. People who are convicted of cruelty to animals can face hefty prison sentences, for example, and they may be ordered to attend rehabilitation programs.

I’ve noticed that foreign commercials in general tend to be more bold and direct about social issues, and it seems to be working pretty well. Maybe we should consider ramming the FCC down a sewer and growing a pair when it comes to advertisements which are designed to raise awareness about the serious problems we face as a society. Perhaps if we did, there wouldn’t be so much suffering in the world.

I read this article about young girls getting their hair done professionally, and had to take a time out before I wrote about it. The short version of the story, for those of you who don’t feel like reading the article, is that more and more salons in the United States are catering to young girls, holding salon parties, and setting up a culture where even young girls don’t feel adequate without getting their hair done. And, in the words of someone in the business:

She thinks heightened awareness of fashion and style motivates girls to seek salon hair treatments, as well as peer pressure — the desire both to fit in and stand out.

“Let’s just say it’s a great time to be in the business,” she said.

Because, of course, business is the bottom line, and let’s not think about the implications of what “peer pressure” and a “heightened awareness of fashion” really means. This article followed hard on another feature about little girls getting their nails done professionally which sparked a lot of commentary in the feminist community, and I’m kind of surprised that I’m not seeing more responses to this article. Maybe people are just starting to feel jaded with all of the outrages to feminist sensibilities in the media today, and they can’t decide which thing to be most outraged about.

A couple of things about this article struck me. One is that I really do see the gap between rich and poor getting larger, and being more heavily emphasized early in life. I didn’t really see this discussed in the article, but it made me think of my own childhood as a poor kid, and how despite the fact that I was much poorer than most of my classmates, we were pretty much equal. Some people might have had nicer clothes than others, but at 11 and 12, my poverty didn’t make me a target.

For poor girls today, that is obviously not the case. When all of the popular girls are getting salon cuts and you can’t afford them, that’s going to make you a target, and I happen to think that’s pretty shitty. I never realized that we were poor, really, until high school, and I think that was really beneficial for my self esteem, and it helped make me who I am today. It’s a pity that the next generation isn’t getting that chance, because it sets up a culture where people in the lower classes are going to feel like lesser beings, and that infuriates me.
Of course, the article also illustrated the fact that we have a society which is ever more focused on looks, especially for women. I don’t know about you, but at 11 I was a wiry, dirty, unkempt little monster, and so were most of the people around me. It would never have occurred to me to dress up, to wear makeup, to ask my father if he thought I looked alright; I was just being a kid. And I feel like humans have a very long development for a reason, that forcing children to behave like adults is both unnatural and unwise.

And I think that’s the thing that makes me saddest about these articles. It seems like young American girls don’t really get to be kids anymore. Yes, it offends me as a feminist to see young women objectifying themselves, and to see little girls being taught that it’s what on the surface that counts, but it also offends me as a human being to think that these life lessons are being drilled in so early. I don’t really see any way to change our society without raising powerful young women who don’t give a fig about how they or their friends look, and it’s kind of hard to do that when manicured nails and highlights are the fashion.

These articles reminded me of Renaissance paintings, where you see young children dressed up as adults, because that was the norm, then; to force people into adulthood, to marry children off at age 12. Is that what we want?

One of the things I tell my mentees when they ask me where they should go to school is that they shouldn’t be seduced by the power of a name, especially as undergraduates. Harvard may look fancy on a diploma, but you might get the education you want at UMass, for example. It’s hard to resist the siren song of a big name school, I know, having applied to a few (and attended one) in my time, but it often seems to me like undergrads at these institutions are paying for a name, and that’s kind of a pity. Graduate departments are, of course, another kettle of fish.

In a sense, these schools are selling their names, using well established (and sometimes even deserved reputations) to lure in dollars. With education funding the way it is, can you really blame these institutions for whoring themselves out? Especially in the case of state schools, it’s not like these schools could survive otherwise, on the meager budget reluctantly doled out to them.

And there’s a new twist on the classic theme of selling yourself for money, apparently. Listening to NPR on Friday, I heard a story about a joint proposal between Cal Poly and the Saudi Arabian government to start an engineering school, with Saudi Arabia providing the money, and Cal Poly providing the know-how to get the program going. In return for a hefty “gift,” of course. Because Saudi Arabia is an extremely conservative Muslim country, it should come as no surprise to learn that men and women are typically segregated in school settings; but in this instance, the school will be for men only, and the reaction to the proposal has been quite divided.

To say that the proposal has caused an uproar is perhaps a bit strong, but it has certainly resulted in some fervent discussions, and I am firmly on the side of those opposed.

People who are opposed (including much of Cal Poly’s engineering faculty, the IEEE, and the SAE, among numerous others), argue that it is ludicrous for Cal Poly, an institution known for advancing the cause of women in the sciences, to assist with the establishment of an engineering program in a country which will not allow women to study engineering. Essentially, the school has gone too far in whoring itself, in their opinion, and rather than advancing the cause of the institution, this shames it. Cal Poly is famous for providing opportunities to women, and to advancing the idea that men and women are equal; to become involved in a program which is closed to women in a country which is notoriously abusive to women is simply not a good public relations move.

Proponents say, of course, that women might be allowed into the program someday, and meanwhile the school can help influence Saudi Arabian society. But, argue opponents, Cal Poly receives funding from the State of California, and surely it should benefit Californians (and remain aligned with California values). Furthermore, it is patently foolish to suggest that a single American university can influence Saudi Arabia’s entrenched political, cultural, and social values by condoning them with an engineering school for men only. If young men in Saudi Arabia want to study engineering, they can do it just as easily in the United States, if the nation lacks a good engineering program, but I see no reason for Cal Poly to sully itself with a blatantly sexist program in Saudi Arabia.

There is also, of course, the question of what would be involved in an engineering curriculum which conforms with conservative Muslim values. And in whether or not the school compromises its integrity and ability to speak by accepting millions of dollars from the Saudi Arabian government, which has chosen to interpret the words of the Holy Qu’ran in a rather startling way. Women are revered and honored in Muslim tradition, and I suspect that Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) would be dismayed by the treatment of women in conservative Muslim nations in the Middle East.

It’s unfortunate that American education is so poorly valued that respected universities are forced to go to the Middle East for handouts, when, not that long ago, American schools were divesting from South Africa to protest apartheid. I think we’ve gone a long way backwards, as a society, when it’s viewed as morally imperative to speak out against racism at one moment, and perfectly acceptable to pander to sexist regimes for money at the next.

Shame on Cal Poly, the University of California Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, the University of Texas, and numerous other institutions which should know better. To compromise your values for money is to say that you should no longer be valued.