revised Apr 23, 2010
The ad depicting bikini-clad Pamela Anderson as a piece of meat, the names of the cuts such as 'rump' and 'breast' displayed on her body, has been denied a public display by a Montreal agency. An animal rights group, PETA, had wanted to use the poster to gain interest in its cause, animal rights. On the basis of it being sexist, PETA was denied a permit, thus forbidding the group to use the poster, officially, in the launch of its campaign in Montreal at Place Jacques-Cartier in front of the City Hall. Instead, the launch is scheduled for a local restaurant.
Check out the double entendre in this McDonald's ad which illustrates its meat in a manner opposite to the way the PETA ad does (Piece of meat, Slang City, 2005). Ingrid Newkirk and the PETA group don't seem to have any regard for human females, only female (and male) animals. If they did, would they use sex in this manner to draw attention to animal rights. Continuing to perpetuate the idea that women are pieces of meat in men's eyes is harmful to women - not to women who have the financial means and the support to remain safe but to the ones who have to rely on men for their survival and who have little power on their side.
Will people buy the PETA poster just because the proceeds go to PETA, or because it is a poster of a beautiful Pamela Anderson, or do they enjoy the joke behind it more, that women are often talked of as being pieces of meat for the sexual use of men and here it is, in a poster endorsed by PETA? This is not the first time controversial images have been used by PETA (see PETA women-as-meat, June 14, 2008). No doubt the poster will enhance Pamela Anderson's reputation, as the PETA site claims, giving her the opportunity to show off "her outer-and inner-beauty to promote a vegetarian diet and point out the similarities between humans and animals" (Pamela Anderson shows that all animals, July 17, 2010). But the effect on the women within society, and on men, is still debatable.
Scantily-clad women are all over the internet. Female Czech politicians have made the news recently, promoting their risqué 2011 calendar (Czechmates, July 9, 2010) to highlight the presence of women in politics. One of the women who appears in the calendar is Marketa Reedova, a 42-year-old Prague city councilwoman now running for mayor. She says "Women's political influence is growing. Why not show we are women who aren't afraid of being sexy? . . . Czechs are open-minded."
Why not show it? Maybe because being sexy isn't simply about showing it. Surely it's closer to being porn than being sexual, if we see porn as something men seek for their own needs while women perform, while being sexy is more to do with the person and her partner. Nevertheless, Czechs are following the lead of the west, the article claims, resisting "the unglamorous trappings and enforced unisex treatment imposed by socialism" (Czechmates, July 9, 2010). Taking steps to 'prove' they are sexual, in such a public manner, would surely be a sign of insecurity, not like the kind of behaviour shown by Pamela Anderson, who surely has nothing more to prove in that respect. For more on the calendar, see Backlash Begins, July 19, 2010.
A decade ago another group of women, members of the Rylstone and District Women's Institute, published a nude calendar (see Calendar girls galore, April 24, 2010). It was a tremendous success! The article tells how the calendar, still being published, has changed over time, and explores the effects of the calendar on various groups also using nude calendars to raise money for a cause. I found the calendar to be a sensitive yet bold way of capturing older women's qualities and strengths (see Beer and Tea, July, 2001).
Pamela Anderson has said, "In a city that is known for its exotic dancing and for being progressive and edgy, how sad that a woman would be banned from using her own body in a political protest over the suffering of cows and chickens" (Pamela Anderson's sexy, July 15, 2010). Women's embodied presence can be a source of power to them. But it can also be exploited, and the images as well as the thoughts behind them might do harm to others. As society continues to deteriorate, under the guise of progress and freedom, especially in the areas of economics and sex, it could be helpful to pause and reflect on some of these issues.
Added Apr 23, 2012
The PETA ad with Pamela Anderson is sexist, but if it isn’t being displayed in a way to intentionally cause offense, and isn’t overly large or imposing, or in the wrong neighbourhood, is there a problem. As others have stated, this display was set up in Montreal, not in a place where sexual images are not seen on a daily basis. The one part of it that is problematic, as I see it, is what is implied by showing a woman’s body as pieces of meat.
As images of sex become more overt, sometimes in unexpected places (see Public displays of private matters, July, 2007), and more women appear to accept that using their sexual attractiveness to achieve their goals is the norm in society today, while men respond to that the way men will, do we need strategies that prevent this from becoming the new form of ‘merit.’
References
Backlash Begins for Czech Calendar MPs
By Leos Rousek
New Europe (US edition)
July 19, 2010
http://blogs.wsj.com/new-europe/2010/07/19/backlash-begins-for-czech-calendar-mps/
Beer and Tea: Harmony and Contradiction Among Two Unlikely Counterparts
By Sue McPherson
July 2001
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/files/EssaysandWriting/2001BeerandTeaSueMcPherson.doc
Calendar girls galore
The Guardian
April 24, 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/24/calender-girls-galore
Czechmates: These Political Figures Star in Their Own Racy Calendar
By Gordon Fairclough and Sean Carney
Wall Street Journal
July 9, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704334604575339011352332760.html#articleTabs_slideshow%3D%26articleTabs%3Darticle
Pamela Anderson Shows That All Animals Have the Same Parts
PETA
July 17, 2010
https://secure.peta.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3205
Pamela Anderson's new PETA ad branded 'sexist' and banned in Canada
By Mail Online Reporter
Daily Mail
16 July 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1294981/Pamela-Anderson-PETA-advert-banned-Canada.html
Pamela Anderson's sexy body-baring PETA ad gets banned in Canada
By Kristie Cavanagh
NY Daily News
July 15, 2010
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/07/15/2010-07-15_pamela_andersons_racy_peta_ad_banned_in_montreal.html
PETA women-as-meat demonstration
By Gwen Sharp
Sociological Images by Lisa Wade and Gwen Sharp
June 14, 2008
http://contexts.org/socimages/2008/06/14/peta-women-as-meat-demonstration/
Piece of Meat
Slang City
2005
http://www.slangcity.com/realenglish/print/piece_of_meat.htm
Public displays of private matters - Irene Mathyssen and James Moore
By Sue McPherson
Sue’s Views on the News
Dec 7, 2007
http://suemcpherson.blogspot.ca/2007/12/public-and-private-work-and-sex.html
Links updated Apr 23, 2012
Showing posts with label pornography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pornography. Show all posts
19 July 2010
7 December 2007
Public displays of private matters - Irene Mathyssen and James Moore
I agree that the issue now is whether or not it is appropriate for politicians to be checking out pictures of their girlfriends, half-naked, while at work, or pictures of any women. It is so easy to claim the offensive pics are 'legitimate.' Does the label 'soft porn' not apply if the man is in a relationship with the female posing scantily-clad? Why would the writer of this article consider it sanctimonius to prefer that members of parliament keep their minds focused on official matters being dealt with rather than on pictures of scantily-clad women whoever she was. Does this have something to do with current norms by which sex is seen as right and normal and cool, while anything objecting to time and place might be considered old-fashioned, and unsexy? I'm not sure that the motive of the offending MP, James Moore, is relevant (see question asked by writer of the article). When sex is introduced into the public arena in the workplace, and so easily dismissed as possibly being problematic, the question we must ask is why the writer of an article such as this thinks its okay for an MP to be viewing pictures of scantily-clad women on the job. Is it because it's his right? And if it is his right, what else does he have the right to, while on the job.
Irene Mathyssen, NDP MP, raised this matter after inadvertently seeing the images of a scantily clad woman, full-screen, on Moore's laptop computer during a parliamentary session. She thought afterwards that it would have been better if she had approached him first about this behaviour, which she saw as inappropriate, instead of passing the information along and having it end up in public. I don't know how many women have tried to resolve difficulties personally, only to have the individual back off and refuse to communicate, but it has hapened to me, and in a way that has come to ruin my life. Mathyssen is lucky she has the backing of her organization. It is likely that a woman on her own wouldn't stand a chance of having a man attempt to resolve such a problem otherwise.
Added Apr 2012
The phrase “No sex please, [fill in the blank]” (see Sudbury Star, 2003) is a joke, and using it as the title of a news article makes a joke of the issue being discussed. No sex please … we’re Canadian …we’re British …we’re sweaty …we’re babyboomers … we’re married, are just some of the ways it is used in the news.
It’s so easy for people to say this incident was a non-issue, that it should never have been raised, that to have done so was “obnoxiously sanctimonius” – ie. coming from a sense of superiority or high-mindedness in sexual matters, and in a high-handed manner. However, the MP sitting in a session of parliament with his computer screen set at an angle so it was visible to members seated behind him was an unnecessary distraction, to say the least. More was said about it at the time, leading to the incident being dismissed with a ‘full’ apology from the MP who had brought it to the attention of the House.
And who should the Sudbury Star have apologized to? Certainly not to MP James Moore, whose reputation they protected by making a joke out of the incident. There were no repercussions that we know of - no jobs lost and no new regulations about parliament members’ permitted viewing during parliamentary sessions. Members should have some sense about what behaviours are acceptable and what may not be, in certain places at particular times, such as in the House of Commons during a parliamentary session. There’s a time and place for everything, and it is usually left to the judgement of the parliamentary politicians to determine that, as individuals.
Why Ms Mathyssen responded the way she did, by raising the matter without addressing it in private first, or to someone in authority, I don’t know, but the incident occurred close to the Dec 6 commemoration of the Montreal Massacre, and the hype associated with that can lead to increased sensitivity to women’s issues. Even though Marc Lepine’s acts of violence had nothing to do with intimate relationships, the other side of it - the White Ribbon campaign - suggests that men work together “to stop domestic violence, sexual assault, and sexual harassment” (White Ribbon Campaign, 2012). Sexism is part of that, though often considered to be of milder consequence, if any.
A month or so ago, I was carrying out my routine task of rolling the garbage bin out to be picked up the next day, whereupon I noticed a fairly large picture on the inside of the window of a car, directly in front of me as I reached the sidewalk. It was of a scantily-clad woman, posing in a sexually suggestive manner. There was no information on what it was advertising, and no name or phone number. I don’t know how common this is, but there it was! It only happened once, and I have not seen it since, in fact, I haven’t seen anything remotely similar on a car window before, or since then.
In ‘Tempest in a laptop,’ Moore is said to have made accusations against Mathyssen on his website, claiming,, “This was a baseless personal attack, and I am disappointed she resorted to such an outrageous tactic to score a headline." That’s as bad as the original accusation made by Mathyssen, in its tone and substance. He is accusing her of making the accusation about soft porn on his laptop to get at him personally, for no reason that he can see, except to be able to make headlines in the news. Obviously, he was “rattled,” but was he as rattled as Mathyssen when she decided to make public his apparent display of sexual images?
According to Allan Woods of the Toronto Star, “MPs are protected from legal action for anything that they say in the House based on the principle of parliamentary privilege.” But in this case, Mathyssen repeated her allegations against Moore to reporters afterwards, while Moore also overstepped legal boundaries by placing his defamatory comments onto his website. It seems as though they were both at fault. It wasn’t the law Mathyssen was afraid of, was it, that led her to apologize. Could it have been the threat of loss of career, for speaking out against behaviour that for men might well be seen as normal?
The phrase ‘tempest in a laptop’ is a play on words of the phrase tempest in a teapot, referring to a big fuss over a minor matter, similar in effect to the joking, demeaning title of the article ‘No sex please, we’re Canadian.’
Allan Woods continues to distort the event in his ‘Tempest’ article, writing that while telling reporters about it, “the image of the scantily clad woman she had described to her fellow MPs turned into "soft porn, Playboy-type stuff." Sometimes it takes a while to come up with the right words to best explain the situation. “Scantily-clad” could mean images from the underwear section in the Sears catalogue. But we all know the difference between that and the kind of sexually suggestive images that are implied by the terms "soft porn, Playboy-type stuff." And, by the way, the image stuck on the inside of the window of the vehicle I mentioned outside where I live was of a woman scantily clad, but of the Playboy type, not Sears catalogue. It was small, too – the article of clothing work by the woman in the image - not the picture itself.
Both of these people - Irene Mathyssen and James Moore - made mistakes in judgement, but only one of them had to apologize, coming across as the guilty party. So was this an error on her part in “jumping to conclusions,” as Woods says in his opening sentence, or was her lack of judgement more to do with expecting this kind of behaviour among MPs, or any men in the workplace, to ever end. If it did end, if men stopped looking, what could we surmise from that?
The problem returns again to one of time and place. Where should such behaviours be tolerated, or accepted as humorous, or seen as normal, and when? It then depends on the person him or herself to decide and act accordingly.
No sex please, we're Canadian
Sudbury Star
7 Dec 2007
http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=808127&action=svdMsg&&archive=true#threads
http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=808127&archive=true
Mathyssen stands by her complaint
By Chip Martin
London Free Press (Sun Media File)
Dec 7, 2007
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/files/Miscellaneous/Mathyssenstandsby.doc
NDP MP sorry for 'scantily clad woman' attack
The Canadian Press
CTV
Dec 7, 2007
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20071206/NDP_apology_071207/
Tempest in a laptop 'Porn' furor grips MPs
By Allan Woods
Toronto Star
Dec 6, 2007
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/283086--porn-furor-grips-mps
White Ribbon Campaign
Online site
2012
http://www.whiteribbon.ca/about_us/#1
Links updated Apr 19, 2012
Irene Mathyssen, NDP MP, raised this matter after inadvertently seeing the images of a scantily clad woman, full-screen, on Moore's laptop computer during a parliamentary session. She thought afterwards that it would have been better if she had approached him first about this behaviour, which she saw as inappropriate, instead of passing the information along and having it end up in public. I don't know how many women have tried to resolve difficulties personally, only to have the individual back off and refuse to communicate, but it has hapened to me, and in a way that has come to ruin my life. Mathyssen is lucky she has the backing of her organization. It is likely that a woman on her own wouldn't stand a chance of having a man attempt to resolve such a problem otherwise.
Added Apr 2012
The phrase “No sex please, [fill in the blank]” (see Sudbury Star, 2003) is a joke, and using it as the title of a news article makes a joke of the issue being discussed. No sex please … we’re Canadian …we’re British …we’re sweaty …we’re babyboomers … we’re married, are just some of the ways it is used in the news.
It’s so easy for people to say this incident was a non-issue, that it should never have been raised, that to have done so was “obnoxiously sanctimonius” – ie. coming from a sense of superiority or high-mindedness in sexual matters, and in a high-handed manner. However, the MP sitting in a session of parliament with his computer screen set at an angle so it was visible to members seated behind him was an unnecessary distraction, to say the least. More was said about it at the time, leading to the incident being dismissed with a ‘full’ apology from the MP who had brought it to the attention of the House.
And who should the Sudbury Star have apologized to? Certainly not to MP James Moore, whose reputation they protected by making a joke out of the incident. There were no repercussions that we know of - no jobs lost and no new regulations about parliament members’ permitted viewing during parliamentary sessions. Members should have some sense about what behaviours are acceptable and what may not be, in certain places at particular times, such as in the House of Commons during a parliamentary session. There’s a time and place for everything, and it is usually left to the judgement of the parliamentary politicians to determine that, as individuals.
Why Ms Mathyssen responded the way she did, by raising the matter without addressing it in private first, or to someone in authority, I don’t know, but the incident occurred close to the Dec 6 commemoration of the Montreal Massacre, and the hype associated with that can lead to increased sensitivity to women’s issues. Even though Marc Lepine’s acts of violence had nothing to do with intimate relationships, the other side of it - the White Ribbon campaign - suggests that men work together “to stop domestic violence, sexual assault, and sexual harassment” (White Ribbon Campaign, 2012). Sexism is part of that, though often considered to be of milder consequence, if any.
A month or so ago, I was carrying out my routine task of rolling the garbage bin out to be picked up the next day, whereupon I noticed a fairly large picture on the inside of the window of a car, directly in front of me as I reached the sidewalk. It was of a scantily-clad woman, posing in a sexually suggestive manner. There was no information on what it was advertising, and no name or phone number. I don’t know how common this is, but there it was! It only happened once, and I have not seen it since, in fact, I haven’t seen anything remotely similar on a car window before, or since then.
In ‘Tempest in a laptop,’ Moore is said to have made accusations against Mathyssen on his website, claiming,, “This was a baseless personal attack, and I am disappointed she resorted to such an outrageous tactic to score a headline." That’s as bad as the original accusation made by Mathyssen, in its tone and substance. He is accusing her of making the accusation about soft porn on his laptop to get at him personally, for no reason that he can see, except to be able to make headlines in the news. Obviously, he was “rattled,” but was he as rattled as Mathyssen when she decided to make public his apparent display of sexual images?
According to Allan Woods of the Toronto Star, “MPs are protected from legal action for anything that they say in the House based on the principle of parliamentary privilege.” But in this case, Mathyssen repeated her allegations against Moore to reporters afterwards, while Moore also overstepped legal boundaries by placing his defamatory comments onto his website. It seems as though they were both at fault. It wasn’t the law Mathyssen was afraid of, was it, that led her to apologize. Could it have been the threat of loss of career, for speaking out against behaviour that for men might well be seen as normal?
The phrase ‘tempest in a laptop’ is a play on words of the phrase tempest in a teapot, referring to a big fuss over a minor matter, similar in effect to the joking, demeaning title of the article ‘No sex please, we’re Canadian.’
Allan Woods continues to distort the event in his ‘Tempest’ article, writing that while telling reporters about it, “the image of the scantily clad woman she had described to her fellow MPs turned into "soft porn, Playboy-type stuff." Sometimes it takes a while to come up with the right words to best explain the situation. “Scantily-clad” could mean images from the underwear section in the Sears catalogue. But we all know the difference between that and the kind of sexually suggestive images that are implied by the terms "soft porn, Playboy-type stuff." And, by the way, the image stuck on the inside of the window of the vehicle I mentioned outside where I live was of a woman scantily clad, but of the Playboy type, not Sears catalogue. It was small, too – the article of clothing work by the woman in the image - not the picture itself.
Both of these people - Irene Mathyssen and James Moore - made mistakes in judgement, but only one of them had to apologize, coming across as the guilty party. So was this an error on her part in “jumping to conclusions,” as Woods says in his opening sentence, or was her lack of judgement more to do with expecting this kind of behaviour among MPs, or any men in the workplace, to ever end. If it did end, if men stopped looking, what could we surmise from that?
The problem returns again to one of time and place. Where should such behaviours be tolerated, or accepted as humorous, or seen as normal, and when? It then depends on the person him or herself to decide and act accordingly.
No sex please, we're Canadian
Sudbury Star
7 Dec 2007
http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=808127&action=svdMsg&&archive=true#threads
http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=808127&archive=true
Mathyssen stands by her complaint
By Chip Martin
London Free Press (Sun Media File)
Dec 7, 2007
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/files/Miscellaneous/Mathyssenstandsby.doc
NDP MP sorry for 'scantily clad woman' attack
The Canadian Press
CTV
Dec 7, 2007
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20071206/NDP_apology_071207/
Tempest in a laptop 'Porn' furor grips MPs
By Allan Woods
Toronto Star
Dec 6, 2007
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/283086--porn-furor-grips-mps
White Ribbon Campaign
Online site
2012
http://www.whiteribbon.ca/about_us/#1
Links updated Apr 19, 2012
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