lauren writes.

I’m sitting at my desk, Lady Grey tea in hand, staring outside at another beautiful day in Raleigh. I keep lamenting the fact that I never blog. I really, truly, want to be better about this; I think it’s important for me. So what better time to start than with a response to a post by my friend Ben, on feminist issues, in which he explicitly asks for the opinions of others, especially women. Well, I’m a woman. (Ain’t I?) And this is my area, so I was going to comment on his post, but then I realized this is a perfect opportunity for me to write in my own blog. And here we are.

Ben’s post centers on an interaction he witnessed outside a bar in Pullman, WA, home of Washington State University (where I got my BA and MA and where Ben is finishing his PhD). SCENE: A group of girls, dressed inappropriately for the 20 degree weather, walk by Valhalla (a bar), and get ogled by every guy sitting by the outward-facing window. One girl complains about how disgusting it is that guys are always staring at her ass, and the group of girls then walks into another bar, where they’re all but guaranteed the same treatment. Ben’s questions are these (which are, by the way, asked often and frequently by others): Why do they put up with this? What do they expect? If they know this is the outcome of dressing sexy (and without jackets), why do they participate?

The short response is this: those girls don’t see another choice. Ben notes that college students can be incredibly fixated on successfully following through with the drunk hook-up; women as well as men. Consider the uniform of the college student going out on the weekend. For men, this almost always includes jeans and a button-up shirt. For women, you’d be hard-pressed NOT to find a bunch of females wandering around Pullman in a sleeveless or strapless top with a short skirt, or possibly just a revealing dress, and heeled shoes. Many women wear jeans or pants, sure… but many don’t. I know it’s basically the same at every university in the US, too.

So what happens if these women don’t wear the uniform? They don’t believe they’re presenting themselves as desirable. And here is where men will say, “I don’t CARE how slutty they’re dressed!” and where self-righteous females will say, “Whatever, they look like skanks, I like to be WARM when I go out!” And therein lies more fuel to the fire of the sexualization of girls.

From a VERY early age, girls are marketed to by being told that it is their duty to appear sexy and seductive and highly sought-after. If you don’t believe me, look at Bratz, with their pouty lips and lidded eyes (evolutionary biologists, you can deduce from that what you will), skinny bodies and hands on popped hips. The Monster High female characters look exactly the same. Impossibly thin and totally sexy. Kids’ toys that take cues from the Victoria’s Secret models’ poses. In fact, here is a lovely post on the sexualization of girls’ toys, and I would encourage everyone to read more from that site. The authors here point to a trend in teaching girls sexual objectification — the expectation that females are meant to be presented as things to benefit the gaze and desire of the heterosexual, patriarchal male — at an incredibly young age.

And as girls get older, they’re marketed to in the same way, using even more aggressive tactics. How many 16-year-old girls have you seen read Cosmopolitan magazine, which has a cover story on every issue about how to please your man or unlock his desires? And if your answer is, “none, Lauren; I don’t hang around 16 year olds,” then ask yourself just how far-fetched said scenario would be. Can you picture 16 year olds gathered tightly together, encircling an issue of Cosmo, soaking up information about what men “really want”? Of course you can, because they do it all the time.

My point in all of this is to say that from a young age, girls are taught by the media — TV, movies, commercials, and magazines — that they should look sexy and that they should please men. Almost nowhere will you find media that tells young women they are good for more than eye candy and pleasure. This gets indoctrinated at such a young age that by the time those girls get to college, they are certified professionals in looking sexy in order to garner male attention. It is common now to hear young women argue that this is their own choice — that pole dancing is empowering, dammit — but it’s really not. They’re presented with this argument as a supposed choice: “Feminism says that you’re a ‘strong and independent woman,’ so you can own the fact that you’re objectifying yourself with that outfit and those dance moves! You go, girl!” This is a fake brand of feminism that uses contemporary feminist rhetoric about being strong and independent (Jesus, gag me) in order to cater to the male gaze, or the androcentric, sexualizing look upon the female body, which is an object for sexual consumption.

Here I (finally) come back to Ben’s issue; the girl that complained about being ogled. NEWS FLASH: no girl likes this. No girl likes being treated as an object for sexual consumption without her consent. No girl likes going out to a bar in winter wearing heels and not wearing a coat. Girls talk about this in a way that eases the tension, I think, by yelling thing like, “omigod, I am so cold! Omigod, I don’t know if I can get down B Street in these heels because I’m so drunk!” They recognize how absurd their situation is, the situation they willingly participate in in an effort to conform to cultural expectations for young women (i.e. that they should look sexy), and so they end up joking about it. At least, I hope that’s what’s happening. (Side note: I fully believe in the strength and independence of a girl who can successfully navigate a trip down B Street, in heels, in the Pullman snow and ice. Now THAT is some badass lady strength. You go, girl. Unironically.)

If a woman doesn’t present herself as physically or sexually available, one of two things might happen. The first is she won’t feel she’s getting enough attention — whether she wants attention from a particular man or not — and so she feels like she’s losing this cultural I’m-here-to-be-looked-at game. It diminishes her self-worth (not wholly or  entirely, but it shows she’s failed at something she’s been taught is important her whole life). The second is that she gets raped. And yet, amazingly, if the girl is participating in this game, she still might get raped because, wait for it… she was ASKING FOR IT. Yep; participating in this cultural game of consumption and sexualization — in other words, doing what she’s been taught to do her whole life — is read as asking to be sexually assaulted. She’s just an object for sexual consumption anyway, right??? And even if she doesn’t participate, she’s still a woman, still an object, and thus still at risk for getting raped, whether she’s wearing a strapless mini-dress or a winter parka and jeans.

I’ll take the time here to note that, in other words, what a woman wears has absolutely NOTHING to do with how she is treated by a man. A man who rapes and abuses a woman because she was wearing a dress will almost certainly treat a more conservatively-dressed woman the same way. Because this treatment has nothing to do with clothing; it has to do with cultural expectations. The young women Ben saw are expected to go out in sexy outfits, and they thus endure the sexual backlash against them in the hopes that they find someone they’re also attracted to (or possibly just that they’re validated by their physical appeal, even if they don’t like the kind of attention they get. “Yeah, it’s gross, but at least it means I’m hot and I know that’s what’s important!”) Ben says maybe this is the “cool” way to dress, but this uniform isn’t determined by women. It’s determined by a sexist, patriarchal society. It also encourages women to be mean to each other, because while women are meant to be sexy, they’re not really meant to enjoy sex themselves.

Victoria’s Secret, Cosmo, almost any tv show or movie, presents women as something sexy FOR men. Leave me a comment if you can think of something that doesn’t (I can’t think of a few, but I’ve already written too much to go off on another tangent), and we can chat about it. If women are told to be sexy for men, then it is men’s pleasure that is at the forefront of any sexual interaction. To highlight women’s sexual satisfaction is to take power away from the man. So a woman who enjoys sex, how dare she, gets called a slut or a whore. (This also happens if a woman is assertive or sticks up for herself in any way; “oh yeah, well you’re just an ugly, ball-busting slut and no man would want you.” Horror.) And women actually USE this against each other, too! It’s terribly depressing. May the sexiest woman win! And then act like a porn star, because you’re performing, darling!

I know this is reductive, and I know some of you reading this don’t identify or you’ve perhaps changed the ways you interact with men and other women (I’m assuming here you’re a heterosexual and cisgendered woman, reader). But my point isn’t to paint everyone woman with the same brush. My point is to call attention to an issue that many people don’t understand because it seems like women don’t know what they want. In reality, I believe they’re stuck in a lather-rinse-repeat cycle of showing off that they are model women — good and sexy and mysterious and chaste — while simultaneously dealing with demeaning and offensive reactions, which they don’t want but in many cases simply see as what comes with the territory (which is, frankly, fucked up). This cycle has a stronghold in our culture and it undermines any sense of agency a woman has.

Ben writes at the end of his post, “have we really reached a point where not just any sexuality but egregious, totally public sexuality is assumed to be the primary currency for negotiating social and sexual relationships for the majority of our young women?”

I would say yes. The media prove this. Examples:
Toddlers and Tiaras [bonus meta commentary from a pageant mom.]
Teen Mom [Girl: "Okay so by looking at me, would you have thought that I've had a kid?" Guys: "NO." Girl: Good!" Guy: You're gorgeous!"]
Jersey Shore [A grenade is an unattractive, undesirable girl. Notice how the other girls laugh; I assume because they're glad the horn isn't going off for them.]

The current political and social landscape does little to value women outside of their appearance. It isn’t so easy as just not wearing sexy clothes or not being sexy (which is demanded of women), or to accept the fact that when one does, she’ll garner unwanted attention. It is a Catch-22; look sexy, get treated like an object. Don’t look sexy, and go against the most strongly ingrained message for young women in America (which is, yeah, to look sexy). I think the media is where the change must come, and then the collective groups will follow suit. Life imitates art, or TV, as it may be. All of this sexualization, egregious displays of sexuality, navigating the madonna/whore divide… this isn’t what women want. It isn’t what most men want, either (those who aren’t drunk off their privilege, anyway). Rather, it’s just what we think we’re supposed to want. Well, I’m not buying it, and neither should you.

I was headed home this morning after some light shopping (the necessities, you know; clothes hangers and nail polish), when I saw this sign and turned my car around to hop out and snap a photo.

click for larger version

It’s one of those large window decals on the inside of a Jenny Craig in the Cary Crossroads shopping center. The text reads: “I’ve just lost 50 lbs. That’s half a supermodel!”

I am outrageously offended by this attitude. In a classic advertising technique, it pits women against other women in an effort to sell them a product that is based off assumptions that women are unhappy and undesirable. It’s also so confusing in its rudeness: The woman lost weight in an effort to conform to US expectations of female appearance, while simultaneously cutting down women who are naturally thin; those who, although their number is minute, indeed fit that standard or expectation. What else would this woman say? ”I’m skinnier now! But at least I’m not as skinny as those supermodel bitches”? “Even though I’ve lost weight, I’m still healthier/sexier/more desirable than those waifs on the runway! Jeez, eat a cheeseburger, ladies”?

This ad perpetuates a snark, cattiness, and general backstabby attitude that is so prevalent in contemporary culture. (In the US, anyway.) A lot of people argue that women end up in the boxing ring opposite each other because of patriarchal culture: in a changing landscape where more women are working outside the home, earning more higher ed degrees, and marrying later in life, there is a new cultural expectation that says men are no longer the competition women must face, but rather other women. To “act like a man” means to treat women — especially at work, school, or anywhere else they may succeed — in a sexist, oppressive manner. If you cut them down first, they can’t cut you down. This indeed occurs with men as well, but where men become the objects to attain and women are the competition. Why don’t college aged girls wear jackets in the winter when they wander around town looking for a frat party or a house party? Is it because they want to appeal desirable to men… or do they want to appear more desirable than every other woman?

I don’t subscribe fully to these perspectives, but I think they’re important to consider when looking at an ad like this one for Jenny Craig. The ad perpetuates this woman-on-woman battle to reign as the most desirable while belittling the competition. Even while you’re trying to emulate the competition.

Less than a year ago, I spent ten bucks on an antenna for my TV and I now get a handful of over-the-air channels. Initially, I was really shocked at the commercials aimed toward women. As far as television is concerned, women must trim down their fat asses and make up and dewrinkle their hideously old faces, will fall in love with their cleaning products (especially because their husbands and kids are inept little pigs in the home), and need their me-time which never includes sex (God forbid you go one step passed “sexy” and wind up in the scary land of “sexual”) but always includes chocolate. Or yogurt. When I talked to my freshmen (English 101 students) about women having relationships with their cleaning products and women looking lovingly on their slipshod families, some responded that women are “naturally” better at cleaning the house than men and I was later called a Feminazi. But as long as people still think it’s okay to shame women for their weight (or their age or for wanting more than a Swiffer Wet Jet and some Yoplait out of life), while implying they’re way less desirable than that other lady over there, I’m going to keep complaining about it. Alignment with a Fascist regime or not.

Hey, y’all! How you doing? Great, me too!

…Hang on; who am I talking to here? No one? Hmm, that’s what I thought.

I’ve decided to make an effort to actually use this blog. Somehow, I figure that will justify the money I spend each year to host my website. The only problem is that I don’t know how to use my blog. I don’t know what kind of voice and tone I should foster here. I don’t know if I should be Academic Lauren (*snort*) or Cool Hip LaurDog (*guffaw*). AND SO, I’ve decided to strike a happy medium. I am an academic (or, I’m trying to be), but that’s not all I am. I also like writing for myself, which I rarely do anymore. I like writing casually. I also like the idea that, occasionally, something I say may strike a chord with someone on the grand ol’ intarwebz. So, I’ll blog to network, and I’ll also just blog to write. Plan!

So here is what’s been on my mind all day. It’s this commercial, for 901 Tequila, directed by Justin Timberlake. (I’m majorly sorry the video is too wide for this blog theme. I hate that.)

My opinion on this commercial is mixed. It’s old hat, for one; sell a product with sexuality. In the words of my students (every single year), “Sex sells!” Blah blah. Yet it’s undeniable that the most unique, fresh, and perhaps, one could argue, groundbreaking element of this ad is the fact that the woman’s pleasure is at the forefront of the sex-selling message. The vast majority of commercials — especially commercials for alcohol — use women as purveyors of male sexual arousal and pleasure, but in this 901 tequila commercial, it’s the woman who is being pleasured. And, arguably, it’s done in a way that doesn’t rely on patriarchal assumptions of what makes women feel good. Read: the act is all about her; he isn’t involved to the degree that he is receiving the same amount of pleasure. So, basically, we have an ad for tequila that sells its product by highlighting female sexuality, glamour, and power. Rock n roll.

The power given to the woman in the ad is another element that strikes me as positive and fresh. She moves with purpose and intent, and she gets what she wants at the end, without asking or promising she’ll reciprocate. She’s beautiful in a really admirable way, that is not cliché (rhyme!). Plus, she’s quoting Ben Franklin!*

And yet, at the same time… what? How does a comment against stuffy, oppressive British politics relate to tequila and cunnilingus? (I’m using that word to sound hopefully, less crass. If it bothers you… maybe don’t come back to my blog again. heheh.) Call me crazy, but I don’t see the parallels. I feel that the odd pairing is exacerbated by the woman’s delivery of the lines. I had to watch the video three times before I realized what the hell she was saying. Where’s the metaphor? Is she the remote province? What’s the cake?! Is the awkwardness in the ad due to her delivery, or is it the inability to reconcile 18th-century rhetoric with a 21-century tequila ad? Maybe some would argue that doesn’t matter, but how many people who view this will recognize the source of what she’s spouting? I’ma guess not too many. And so, the message is lost on viewers. She starts her speech off with the equivalent to what one would see in a terrible English 101 paper. (“In the first place, you are to consider”? Wut?)

Maybe superslick JT is trying his damnedest to go high brow. I think it’s a little too esoteric.

PLUS… I’m just going to say it: It bugs me that the woman pours the tequila for her man. Why doesn’t she get any? Is the glass an incentive to go down on her? (I don’t really believe that, but it’s a depressing consideration nonetheless and probably shouldn’t be disregarded entirely.) And, to the less informed audience, I bet she sounds irritatingly verbose. Because frankly, she does to me. Wrong choice of text there, JTimbs. Plusplus, the title of the video — Let Them Eat Cake — is so incredibly irrelevant to the content of the ad. Maybe that was just the YouTuber who uploaded the thing, but I wanted to complain about it anyway.

In spite (because?) of all this, I have spent the majority of today trying to “get” this ad, so apparently it’s working. Bollocks. I will say, positively, that in addition to the woman’s lovely badassedness, the guy looks like Matthew Fox. And that, my friends, is nomtown.

* See: Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One. And then reflect on how outrageously awesome Benjamin Franklin was. No wonder everyone assumes he was a US President.

As some of you may not yet know (I have no idea who I am referring to here, because I don’t know who reads this pathetic excuse for a blog, mainly because I never effin’ update), I am going to North Carolina State University in the fall. I got accepted into the Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media PhD program, and I went to their recruitment visit a few weeks ago. I am so happy I did, too, because I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do (with regard to my acceptance at Penn State, as well) but going to visit NCSU completely sealed the deal; the faculty and the students are nothing short of amazing. Raleigh is adorable; it’s like the most quaint big city ever. And they have Bojangles’. NOMTOWN EXPRESS.

Anyway, so, the other day I was on the NCSU website to see if I had the ability to claim an email address, and I stumbled upon this:

I find it a) epically awesome that I am already on their website, and b) even more epically awesome that, once I graduate in 5 weeks (FIVE WEEKS!) I will officially be a doctoral student. (Right, isn’t that how it works? I remember the last day of classes my Junior year of high school, when my friends and I left campus and were yelling, “We’re Seniors!!” I don’t know if it’s legitimate, but I guess once you are not what you used to be, you are what you will become. Or something. Or maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about.)

As my mom wrote in a Facebook message to me, “the world will have tiny, curly-haired Dr. Lauren Clark in a few years!”

:-D

I have never liveblogged anything before, but Julie’s asked me to blog her colloquium on Digital Humanities and Scholarship with Dr. Jason Farman and Chris Ritter, PhD candidate. So, I’m going to try my damnedest to do this, and do it well. :)

1:02 The End! First liveblogging attempt, I believe, a success!

12:59 Chris: Part of the role model role and the cheerleader role is that we, as instructors, are modeling usage and an attitude toward digital technologies instead of playing know-it-all. Julie: students often use blogging inappropriately, especially in the classroom, because they’re not being pushed or challenged. Commenting is one of the best ways to model the use of digital technologies in the classroom, and embody the cheerleader role simultaneously.

12:58 Apparently ETD pdfs can have links, and images. However, no video.

12:54 Question Time! What do you do when students are reluctant to participate in digital technologies? One solution is to keep that space closed, to create a safe environment where students feel comfortable.

12:52 Jason’s made the point that Twitter works best when installed on a mobile device, in order to create a proprioreceptive relationship with friends. I think this is pretty obvious, because when I’m tweeting from my laptop, I’m generally doing something really boring, like writing, or looking at Facebook.

12:51 The ways in which narratives are affected by digital technologies are AWESOME.

12:47 Talking about Rider Spoke, put together by Blast Theory. This is the project where a person has a headset and a bike, and listens to directions given through the earpiece about where to bike. Participants then have the opportunity to find a specific place that reminds them of a particular memory, and record it. Those recording are geo-tagged, and others can then listen to your memories recorded at those places.

12:43 A real draw toward the internet now is social networks; what’s going to happen when we move this relationship onto our mobile devices? This is going to shift the social interaction from taking place through a screen into being closely tied to proximity (ex: iPhone apps that let you physically locate other people with that app, being close friends with someone in Japan with whom you can communicate in multiple ways across multiple platforms.)

12:41 Cyberspace has always been a personal relationship with your screen. Laptops changed this, with mobility, but our relationship with cyberspace is now integrated much more closely with our physical embodiment – what with iPhones, GPS navigation, social networking, etc.

12:38 Jason’s turn! He is focusing on an area where he sees a key shift in digital scholarship – the move away from personal computing toward physical or mobile computing. We are finally moving toward true ubiquitous computing.

12:37 If anyone wants to talk to Julie for a half an hour in the hallway, ask her about scholarship, pedagogy, or creating archives!

12:36 Julie’s advice: Find ways to use technologies to get students to light up as much as you are.

12:34 When teaching with technology, Julie follows the advice of Jeremy Boggs. Otherwise, students will create digital projects and wonder, what’s the point? If students aren’t creating new knowledge, if they’re not being helped through new and unfamiliar technologies, and if they’re not positively reinforced and encouraged, then digital scholarship is gonna fall flat on its face.

12:33 How do we start creating a digital scholarship? Step One is to find what lights you up. Step two is to make sure you are legitimizing the use of technology in the classroom.

12:29 Digital Humanities isn’t simply putting things online – that would make anybody a digital humanist! 

12:27 The point of digital humanities is to bridge gaps – gaps between pedagogies, teachers and students, various topics. Julie wants to know: how do we talk about old texts with new tools? Moreover, how do we get students to critically read texts like, say, Melville?

12:26 Julie’s turn! She says that Digital Humanities is the one place where she sees people getting jobs. Although she’s an Americanist, Julie is super techy – she can’t break away from her world of computers and coding!

12:24 Chris says UMI needs to abandon their current practices with digital formatting, allow truly digital ETDs, and scholars need the options presented to them in order to be able to create those truly digital ETDs.

12:21 Chris’s Diss intends to map and analyze networks (he studies World of Warcraft), but he can’t do the kinds of mapping he wants to do because when UMI states it wants a digital version, what they really want is a .pdf. 

12:18 Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) may seem super prevalent already, but options (even figuring out what they are) are limited.

12:17 Kairos earned the Best Journal Design Award at MLA this year – take that, Cheryl Ball! (Just kidding.) 

12:15 Chris is a student of techno-rhetoric (and a computer geek). He’s discussing the benefits of composing with new media, and how creative it allows you to be. This reminds me of what Richard Miller said last night (he Skyped into my Institutions,Technology, Education, and Agency class) about how humanists must move from just critique and into creativity.

12:12 Chris is opening discussion. He’s talking on the research he’s presenting at Cs, too. 

12:11 Chris just recently passed his exams! Julie’s are in the fall. These people are SMRT. I would write down their research and scholarship, but Jason said them too fast. 

12:10 The actual title is Emerging Trends in the Digital Humanities. My bad.

Normally, when I see an ad whose appearance is obviously purposeful, I smile. It’s funny when ads about online universities and writing books and learning English appear in my work-related emails. I like it when Facebook shows me ads about shoes and jewelry and clothing, because I’m overtly passionate about those things. However, today on Facebook, while writing my long-lost NY buddy Rachael a comment, I noticed an ad that gave me an unsettled feeling. Here ’tis.

I get a lot of Mod Cloth ads on Facebook, and I don’t mind them. Often, they give me a new garment to obsess over for a while, until I get over it because I can’t afford it. This ad is no different. However, I already obsessed over these shoes. And when they went on sale at endless.com, I bought them. Yes, mon chéri, I own those heels, and I purchased them online.

I am sure the case is just that the shoes are killer and therefore they were used in an ad. Maybe they have been successfully advertised as of late and their sales went up drastically and so Mod Cloth is appealing to the statistics of their demographic, myself (clearly) included. However, there is a small part of me that feels incredibly anxious at the thought of this ad being tailored to me, specifically. Is that even possible? Can my online purchasing be tracked and sold to online advertising companies? I mean, I did only buy the heels a couple of months ago. I really think (read: hope) that I’m freaking out over nothing. But nonetheless, I am kinda freaking out.

Surveillance… dun dun duuuuuun.