Fat-phobic Progressivism

Ban T-Shirts

When I see a shirt with the EZLN star on it, naturally I have to go check this store out, cuz I've always wanted one, and looking through all the shirts I more or less was liking what I was seeing.

Then I saw this:

Really? Yeah let's fat shame people, that's super progressive!

Maker of this shirt, please ask yourself: How does re-iterating a sexist, classist and racist beauty norm challenge the system the rest of these shirts are speaking against? I hate fast food as much as the next bleeding heart SLOW food liberal, not because they're "making people fat" but because they're loading their products up with ingredients that are fucking up our planet and fucking up our bodies. But un-health and "fat" don't necessarily go together!

Just like the "ironic racism" that seems to be so popular these days, the totally accepted and often cheered on fat-hate I so often find amongst hipster fauxgressives makes me just a tad nauseous. And clearly that's what's going on here, they're real careful to have that in fashion "alternative" type look (ohhhh tattoos!) and models of color, but, oh, all conventionally slim and pretty and able-bodied. HOW DARING.

At Feminist Review (where the EZLN shirt was reviewed and where this odyssey began) Mandy pointed out that the image is also incredibly ironic being as the model they chose is a woman of color, in a country where poor communities of color are known to have lower access to healthy food and higher rates of obesity and diabetes.

Was the shirt a rather fucked up dig at the food industry for putting their worst shit in the neighborhoods of low income people of color? A dig at people of color for their eating habits? Or a totally unconscious but really problematic aesthetic choice?

Whatever the thought process, we are left with an image loaded with messages, messages I don't particularly like.

Too bad too... Still like the EZLN shirt.

Stay classy PETA.

via Deceiver.com and nueva voz

I guess they couldn't settle for just insulting women in general (over and over and over), people of color, lesbians, immigrants, and I'm sure that's just for a start. Nope, not good enough, it's fat women's turn! Because there are no fat vegetarians, and of course, being fat is BAD!

I don't know that there's anything that's turned me off more to animal rights than PETA. Congrats, assholes.

KRXQ Losing Sponsors

Via en|Gender and GLAAD blog

In the wake of KRXQ radio hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States not apologizing for their offensive comments against transgender children, individuals continue to take action and share their concerns with the station.
You can listen to last week’s segment here and their follow-up to the controversy here.
On June 2, GLAAD issued a Call to Action and today renewed its call for supporters to let KRXQ know that Rob and Arnie should apologize for their remarks. We have also been blogging about this story (here and here).
Business leaders have also become alarmed by last week’s defamatory radio segment and are distancing themselves from the shock jocks and their dehumanizing remarks. Individuals are utilizing social networking tools like Facebook to voice their concerns and alert companies of the harmful diatribe.

At 1:33pm, I received an email from the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. The company is responsible for well, Dr. Pepper and Snapple along with 40+ brands including 7UP, Country Time, Crush, Hawaiian Punch, Mott’s, Orangina, Welch’s and Yoo-hoo.
Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Inc gave us the following statement to share with our supporters:

We found the segment to be offensive and as a result, we are pulling our Snapple advertising from the station.
Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.

As far as we know, the beverage company now becomes the second business to pull its advertising from KRXQ as a result of last week’s defamatory and dehumanizing comments against transgender children made by radio hosts Rob and Arnie.
The popular restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill was the first to announce pulling their advertising contract from the station.
Please continue to check back for updates on this developing story.
—————
UPDATE:
At 4:00pm EST, GLAAD spoke with SONIC Corp, the largest chain of drive-in restaurants in the country. SONIC confirmed they pulled all of their advertising from KRXQ as a result of the offensive comments made on the “Rob, Arnie and Dawn in the Morning” show during their May 28 radio segment.
SONIC provided GLAAD with the following statement at 4:45pm EST:

Sonic wants to assure you that the views of this station are in no way related to the views of Sonic. Sonic was alerted to the May 28th segment only yesterday and immediately began researching the segment, show and Sonic’s planned advertising on the station. SONIC in no way condones violence toward children and does not wish to be associated with media content that condones or promotes such activity in any way.  We have decided to immediately withdraw advertising from this station and have notified the station of our decision.     

SONIC now joins Snapple and Chipotle in their removal of advertising on KRXQ.

Does Yelp Manipulate Business Pages For It's Advertisers?

From the East Bay Express: Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0

Because they were often asked to advertise soon after receiving negative reviews, many of these business owners believe Yelp employees use such reviews as sales leads. Several, including John, even suspect Yelp employees of writing them. Indeed, Yelp does pay some employees to write reviews of businesses that are solicited for advertising. And in at least one documented instance, a business owner who refused to advertise subsequently received a negative review from a Yelp employee.

Many business owners, like John, feel so threatened by Yelp's power to harm their business that they declined to be interviewed unless their identities were concealed. (John is not the restaurant owner's real name.) Several business owners likened Yelp to the Mafia, and one said she feared its retaliation. "Every time I had a sales person call me and I said, 'Sorry, it doesn't make sense for me to do this,' ... then all of a sudden reviews start disappearing." To these mom-and-pop business owners, Yelp's sales tactics are coercive, unethical, and, possibly, illegal.

"That's the biggest scam in the Bay Area," John said. "It totally felt like a blackmail deal. I think they're doing anything to make a sale."

Yelp officials deny that they move negative reviews, although such allegations have surfaced many times before. The issue is even addressed on the web site's Frequently Asked Questions page. Chief Operating Officer Geoff Donaker said advertisers and sales representatives don't have the ability to move or remove negative reviews. "We wouldn't be in business very long if we started duping customers," he said.

But Donaker's denials are challenged by nine local business owners and also by a former contract employee who worked with Yelp in its early days. That person, who is still close to some Yelp employees and only agreed to be interviewed if granted anonymity, said several sales reps have told him they promised to move reviews to get businesses to advertise. "It's not illegal or unethical," he said they told him. "We're just helping the little guy. It doesn't hurt them, it benefits them."

Such tactics may be legal, but they clearly raise ethical concerns. Yelp touts its web site as consisting of "real people" writing "real reviews." The allegations of business owners who have tangled with the company suggest otherwise.

If Yelp indeed suppresses honest reviews in exchange for its advertisers' money, it is cheating users who expect genuine consumer feedback. Conversely, if Yelp demands payment to remove even dishonest reviews, then advertisers are being cheated.

One thing is certain: In both cases, Yelp benefits.

WTF Loreal?

Because your not pretty enough if you're even a little bit darker skinned.

Good to know, I guess!

*Sigh*

Women Deserve Better

What We Deserve
h/t to Writing Evolution

Culturally-diversified bi-racial girl,
with a small diamond nose-ring
and a pretty smile
poses beside the words: "Women deserve better".

And I almost let her non-threatening grin begin to
infiltrate my psyche-
till I read the unlikely small-print at the bottom of the ad.
'Sponsored by the US Secretariate for Pro Life Activities
and the Knights of Columbus'
on a bus, in a city with a population of 563,000.

Four teenage mothers on the bus with me.
One latino woman with three children under three,
and no signs of a daddy.
One sixteen year old black girl,
standing in twenty two degree weather
with only a sweater,
and a bookbag,
and a bassinet, with an infant that ain't even four weeks yet-

Tell me that yes: Women do deserve better.

Women deserve better
than public transportation rhetoric
from the same people who won't give that teenage mother
a ride to the next tranist.
Won't let you talk to their kids about safer sex,
and never had to listen as the door slams
behind the man
who adamantly says "that SHIT ain't his"-
leaving her to wonder how she'll raise this kid.

Women deserve better than the three hundred dollars
TANF and AFDC will provide that family of three.
Or the six dollar an hour job at KFC
with no benefits for her new baby-
or the college degree she'll never see,
because you can't have infants at the university.

Women deserve better
than lip-service paid for by politicians
who have no alternatives to abortion.
Though I'm sure right now
one of their seventeen year old daughters
is sitting in a clinic lobby, sobbing quietly
and anonymously,
praying parents don't find out-
Or is waiting for mom to pick her up because
research shows that out-of-wedlock childbirth
don't look good on political polls.
And Bush ain't having that.

Women deserve better
than backward governmental policies
that don't want to pay for welfare for kids,
or healthcare for kids,
or childcare for kids.
Don't want to pay living wages to working mothers.
Don't want to make men who only want to be
last night's lovers
responsible for the semen they lay.
Just like [they] don't want to pay for shit,
but want to control the woman who's having it.

Acting outraged at abortion,
when I'm outraged that they want us to believe
that they believe
"Women deserve better".

The Vatican won't prosecute pedophile priests,
but I decide I'm not ready for motherhood
and it's condemnation for me.
These are the same people
who won't support national condom distribution
to prevent teenage pregnancy--

But women deserve better.

Women deserve better than back-alley surgeries
that leave our wombs barren and empty.
Deserve better than organizations bearing the name
of land-stealing, racist, rapists
funding million dollar campaigns on subway trains
with no money to give these women--
While balding, middle-aged white men
tell us what to do with our bodies,
while they wage wars and kill other people's babies.

So maybe,
Women deserve better than propaganda and lies
to get into office.
Propaganda and lies
to get into panties,
to get out of court,
to get out of paying child-support.

Get the fuck out of our decisions
and give us back our VOICE.

Women do deserve better.

Women deserve choice.

-Sonya "The Drama" Boom Renee
Individual World Poetry Slam Finals 2006

Fuck you, PETA

h/t to Ann at Feministing who brings us the story of PETA still defending these ads because, basically, they can't think of anything better to get people's attention.

So fuck you PETA, fuck you and your uncreative, sexist, bullshit ads. I liked you better when you were throwing blood at fur wearing celebrities.

Ours Are Prettier Than Yours!

I can't bring myself to put the picture up and have to look at it for the rest of the month... So just follow the link: Republican girlz R hawt! Urz R not!

All I can really say, is wtf?

What do people's looks have to do with anything? I mean really. :( Things like this honestly just make me sick.

Dove

To be perfectly honest I'm quite torn about Dove.

On the one hand, I do love their campaigns, and I can't even begin to express how awesome it was seeing regularly sized women, regularly aged women, on tv for once.

That said, of course they are still a huge corporation, and have other brands which are terrible (Axe anyone?). And I'm of the personal belief that corporations like these are almost intrinsically evil...

And on another hand, my doctor always told me that for my sensitive skin, Dove really does just make the best products, especially their soap.

On the flip side of that, they still are promoting "anti-aging" anti-cellulite bullshit...

It seems like a double edged sword to me... Do we as feminists risk running these ads into the ground by criticizing them, and missing an opportunity for more real woman representation in advertising? Or do we endorse them and allow them to go uncriticized for the other aspects of their campaigns that aren't real woman friendly?

AND if we go the second route, what kind of line do we draw? Personally, I would like to age gracefully. We all know those women in our lives who have aged so, and I'd like to be one of them (of course, we all do, and Dove knows this, and uses that). I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with taking care of our bodies so we do (cleansing, moisturizing, eating well)... But how far do we push that until we're suddenly changing our bodies to prevent aging at all (nip/tucks, crash diets, collagen injections...)?

Bah... there's a lot going on here :P