Every time I go to download files from a BitTorrent tracker site I am constantly bombarded with ads for sex/dating sites or straight up pornography and I’m sick of it.  Women and people of colour are engaging in online technologies as well and we are repetitively told that we don’t belong.

BitTorrent (n.): a file sharing protocol used to distribute large files
BitTorrent tracker site (n.): is a server that assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol

Related Links and Articles:

• Video lecture by Mark Pesce Piracy is Good? How Battlestar Galactica Killed Broadcast TV (bittorrent download is available on the bottom of the page)
• This blog post is where I got my stats: Dreadfully Few Women are Open Source Developers
• For readings on pornography check out Gail Dines’ latest book Pornland: How Porn has Hijacked our Sexuality or Robert Jensen’s Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity
• Geek Feminism is a great blog that supports, encourages, and discusses issues facing women in geek communities
• Of Geeks and Girls is a study exploring how traditional male geek spaces affect women’s interest and participation in computer science.
• For more about bittorrent check out wikipedia, or this article.

Transcript

music lyrics “computer love computer love” I’m so sick of porn with my file sharing.  What the hell bit torrent tracker sites.  BitTorrent is a file sharing protocol used to distribute large files.  So instead of sending the file from one computer to the other which is known as peer to peer.  What’s happening is everyone whose downloading the file is sharing with everyone else so we’re all taking little bits of information and that will eventually be compiled into a full file on our computers.

It’s a really efficient decentralized way of downloading files, it’s actually really ingenious. But as with most geeky technology BitTorrent tracking sites fill their ad space with ads directed at young men, not at people who look like me.  One way that I can tell is because the ads are either how to get ripped in 4 weeks or porn directed specifically at heterosexual, young males.  The images are of women being debased and dehumanized to sell advertising for sex sites or online dating sites.  Some are straight up pornography and others are just using pornographic images to entice young men to visit their sites.

For example the Evony MMO uses ads like this which clearly is using women’s bodies to attract boys to come play their game except I think their game was like a strategy MMO, like, it had nothing to do with the women in the advertisements.  And then these ads are clearly for porn except they’re trying to pretend that it’s like the “classiest collection of nude art.” All of these ads are just using women’s bodies to appeal to geeks and gamers.  People that look like this [cut to an image of the cast of The Big Bang Theory].

I just want to file share without being bombarded by naked women and offers to meet ladies in my neighbourhood.  I also don’t want to download a virtual stripper who takes her clothes of on my desktop.  And frankly, I’m horrified at the thought of someone turning their computer on and having a virtual stripper do a little dance for them everyday.  That falls under the fembot category and y’all know how I feel about that.

There are plenty of techno-geeks who are women so why do these sites insist on advertising only to men.  That was a rhetorical question, I actually know the answer to that. Women are systematically left out of techno-geek culture.  It’s a boys club that’s reinforced socially and culturally.  It creates a space that is so undesirable for women to be in that they don’t want to or they aren’t given the opportunity to participate.

Just look at the fact that less then 3% of open source programmers are women or how about the fact only 13% of Wikipedia contributors are women?  It’s not that women aren’t interested in technology, it’s that there are very real barriers for women to get involved and engage.

Having ads on the BitTorrent tracking site targeted at a very specific demographic of young heterosexual males alienates and discourages women from participating.  And these ads are only a teeny tiny little fraction of the intentional and unintentional barriers keeping women out of the boys club.  I like technology and coding and science fiction and open source software and all sorts of other geeky stuff, so why am I told I don’t fit in?  And I’m also told that the only place for women in this subculture is to be the hot chick or maybe the booth babe at a convention.

We want to be full participants in geek culture and the only way that’s gonna happen is if we dismantle the boys club and tear those barriers down.

music lyrics “computer love computer love”

One of Melanie’s students, Jessica O’Keefe of O’Keefe Films, filmed and edited together this three part video of my talk.

Original videos and resources:

Political Remix Videos:
The Price is Creepy – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDo7WbWBJbQ
Racism in Disney – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2008/07/05/racism-in-disney-mashup/
Reel Grrls Remixed – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2010/03/21/reel-grrls-remixed-ads/
Human Energy – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2008/06/18/the-power-of-human-energy/
A Message From Unilever (Dove/Axe Remix) http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2010/03/06/a-message-from-unilever/

Vidding:
Too Many Dicks – Video Game  http://www.feministfrequency.com/2010/03/remix-too-many-dicks/
Detachable Penis – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2009/03/21/detachable-penis/
Womanizer – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2009/03/07/kirk-is-a-womanizer/
One girl revolution – http://arefadedaway.livejournal.com/280454.html

Videos I didn’t have time to show:
Buffy vs. Edward – http://www.rebelliouspixels.com/2009/buffy-vs-edward-twilight-remixed
The Terminator – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2007/08/10/the-terminator/
300: This is Revisionism – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2008/07/17/300-this-is-revisionism/
Tough Guise Intro – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2008/03/26/tough-guise-intro/
Masculinity in Disney – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2008/03/26/masculinity-in-disney-films/

Resources:
Creative Commons
Center for Social Media
Organization For Transformative Works
Political Remix Video
Smartmeme

Download PDF (756KB)

Heroic women in science fiction and fantasy television shows have done much to represent strong, successful women in leadership positions. However, these female roles that are viewed as strong and empowered embody many masculine identified traits, maintaining a patriarchal division of gender roles. This paper analyzes strong female characters within nine television shows by deconstructing their stereotypically “masculine” and “feminine” gender specific attributes and cross referencing how they play within and against traditional archetypes.

Employing texts from cultural criticism and feminist theory, I explore how representations of groups in popular culture and mass media messaging uphold structures of power by giving higher value to masculine attributes as observed in patriarchal discourse. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of why it is critical to foster television media that supports feminist ideals and breaks out of traditional oppressive gender binaries in order to promote, encourage and envision a just future society.

Recently I sat down with Jennifer Berger, the executive director of About Face, a media literacy organization, helping girls and women resist harmful media messages. They currently have a campaign against American Apparel’s advertising.

Related Links and Articles:

• About Face and visit American Apparel in their Gallery of Offenders.
• Views photos from an action About Face did in San Francisco targeting American Apparel owner Dov Charney
• American Apparel Just Keeps Getting Pornier at Bitch Magazine
• American Apparel Displays its Sexism at Womanist Musings

Transcript

Coming Soon

Liquor ads capitalize on some of the worst (socialized) masculine traits, glamorize them, and sell these behaviours back to us – encouraging and promoting sexism.

Related Links and Articles:

• Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel by Jean Kilbourne
• Collection of posts from Sociological Images about alcohol advertising.
• Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks (as mentioned in the video)
• To learn about control mythologies and how to change the narrative read Re:Imagining Change: How to Use Story-based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements and Change the World by By Doyle Canning and Patrick Reinsborough

This video has English subtitles on YouTube and is available to be translated at DotSub into many different language. Please help reach global audiences by translating!

Transcript

Intro song: “Don’t sell daddy anymore whiskey, I know it will take him away.”

I often talk about women’s representations in popular culture but I think its important that we talk about men and masculinity as well. To paraphrase bell hooks, men aren’t oppressed or exploited by sexism but they do suffer as a result of it.

Advertisers spend billions of dollars annually to make sure that audiences consciously and unconsciously feel an emotional desire to buy their products.  This means that male representation often are of sexist jerks and liquor ads are a great example of this.

Hey men according to television all you have to do to get the ladies is pretend to be emotional, you know, instead of actually expressing honest emotion.

CLIP: Jim Beam Ad
Man: I am so so sorry, is he bothering you.
Women: no, no, no, awwwww

Woman: Is he yours?
Man: ya, he’s my first mate

Women: Where did you get them?
Man: I rescued them from a shelter
Woman: Aw, you did that?

Man: Get the lab

And for you married men, here’s a tip on how you can trick your oblivious wife into doing what you want instead of, you know, actually telling her how you feel.

CLIP: The Wiserhood Ad
Husband: What is she thinking?
Wife: Oh wow, that looks great, I love it. Ya
Husband: I love it too but look at the hole I just found right there
Wife: Oh no, I didn’t see that, that’s awful
Husband: I guess we’re not going to match, again, this keep happening, it’s a good try.
Wife: Such a huge hole
Husband: I guess I’ll just go with this

Voice over: Welcome to the society of uncompromising men, welcome to the Wiserhood.

Advertisers attempt to convince men that manipulation is the only way to engage with women and this leaves women represented as oblivious and unaware of the deceit.  I mean it would be totally ridiculous to maybe, like, communicate honestly.  These ads are clearly telling men that it’s okay to manipulate women in order to get what they want.

If men aren’t learning how to manipulate women, they’re learning that women exist to be displayed, judged and evaluated.

CLIP: French Music
Voiceover “Some perfection is debatable, some is not, Patron”

And objectifying women is just another amusing past time because you know, when were walking down the street, were just there for your visual pleasure.

CLIP: Instrumental Music
Man 1: So the Dawson file, tell me about it
Man 2: The closings in Bo — ston, so get your game face on
Man 1: It’s on

Men: Happy Birth — Day, alright

Voiceover: Guys never change, neither do we. Jim Bean. The bourbon since 1795.

Guys never change and neither does the offensive advertising. Liquor ads take the worst possible masculine traits, repackage it and sell it right back to them continuing this cycle of sexist socialization.  It is a control mythology, a story which assumes this behaviour is natural and will never change.  It promotes and encourages men to continue this behaviour and creates and environment where women have no choice but to accept it.  Showing groups of men engaging in this behaviour repeatedly over many advertising campaigns creates a space in which patriarchal norms are encourages and promoted.

We have to rewrite the narrative and change the story, to one where men can, do and are changing.

The widely popular video game Bayonetta has had an advertising campaign that matches the on screen sexism of the game itself.  In Tokyo a large billboard in the subway invited passersby to literally strip off  flyers to reveal Bayonetta naked underneath.  The campaign perpetuates and encourages sexual and physical harassment against women, an epidemic in Japan (and many other countries, including the United States).

Related Links and Articles:

• High Rates of Street Harassment in Korea and Japan and Video Game Allows Subway Groping and Worse from the blog Stop Street Harassment
• Harassment on Public Transportation is No Joke from Gender Across Borders
• In Anonymous Packed Train Lurk Gropers from The Japan Times

Links to Bayonetta Billboard Images:

• Ads with flyer on body: Ad 1 and Ad 2 (it appears to be a mock up of the ad campaign)
• Ads with the flyers removed and images of the cards
• Example of screen cast of Bayonetta naked

This video has English subtitles on YouTube and is available to be translated at DotSub into many different language.  Please help reach global audiences by translating!

Bayonetta: Innovative Advertising or Sexual Harassment Training Transcript

Bayonetta is a wildly popular video game that was released earlier this year in the US and late last year in Japan for the xbox 360 and playstation 3 — It sold over a million units in just four months.

First the positive things about this game, she’s a single mom…… and now the negatives.

The game stars a character named Bayonetta. Its your basic story of a shapeshifting witch dressed in skin tight leather who can transform into a giant cats, wields an small arsenal of weaponry including whips.

Clip: Bayonetta Trailer

Bayonetta: “Come On”

And of course she has lost her memoirs, there are some evil demands hordes to fight off and something about magical gem eye of the world something something and so on and so forth. Anyway that is all besides the point when it comes to this game.

She also carries with her four pistols, two of which are strapped to her high heeled boots providing the perfect opportunity to contorts her body into pornographic poses spreading her legs and flipping in the air to kill the bad guys. When she lands she does a sexy pose for the player watching (complete with the sound of camera shutters snapping)

But it gets even better, one of her strongest weapons involve her stripping off all her clothes and turning her hair into a demon weapon, did you get that, her clothes go flying off of her in order to use her hair as a weapon. Because clearly her hair couldn’t be a weapon to drag her enemies in to hell with her clothing on!

Predictably the internet is now infested with countless gamers showing off their screen captures of how they managed to get Bayonetta naked during game play) And as if the pornographic, overly sexualized animated representation isn’t bad enough – get this – she restores her power by sucking on a lollipop.

I’m not really here to discuss the overly sexualized, masterbatory adolescent male fantasy that is Bayonetta  -  but rather comment on part of the game’s marketing strategy.

To advertise the release of the game the marketing company placed two 6 ft long billboards in the Shinjuku Station in Toyko. This ad featured the Bayonnetta Logo and then a large rectangle space filled with small cards that passersby were enticed to peal off and take home.  The cards had a lipstick kiss on the front and a photo of Bayonnetta’s gun strapped leg on the inside.  Once a few of the cards were removed it was clear that there was a huge layout of a very naked image of Bayonnetta posing underneath with only her hair covering up her naughty bits. Yes, that’s right, not only is it bad enough that the game is created to and encourages players to undress her in the game play – basically it is a choose your own patriarchal adventure porno fantasy but now the advertisers are inviting passersby to physically strip her naked in the subway station.

Instead of being at least somewhat outraged by this bloggers all over the web were heralding this an example of an innovative and successful ad campaign.

Women’s bodies are constantly used in order to sell products including video games, specifically targeted to young men  but this interactive ad campaign takes objectifying women to a whole other level by asking people to actively participate in doing misogyny. The ad encourages participation in physical harassment and this is especially alarming in the context of how women are treated in Japanese subways.  In 2008 in Tokyo alone there were 2000 reported cases of men groping women, and that is only the amount actually reported!  In another survey 64% of Japanese women have reported being groped on trains and subways. Women’s harassment is so bad that the subway system even introduced women only trains as an effort to curb the sexual harassment.  Women’s only passenger cars have also been introduced in many other places such as Taiwan, Brazil, Mexico and Egypt and I’m surprised they haven’t introduced it in the United States considering the harassment women passengers face here as well.

Harassment is at such epidemic levels that they have also put up public service announcements and ad campaigns in the Japanese subway system.  While there is action being taken to curb this behaviour, through women only cars and public service announcements, right next door is this bayonneta ad perpetuating and encouraging this predatory behaviour.

But as the show progressed, I couldn’t help but notice the blatantly sexist comments. As the jokes kept coming I wondered if they were written as part of the dialogue or just on the whim of the male hosts. While the first award of the night was being handed out, co-host Tommy Tallarico commented to the winners that they “win the girl in red” referring to the women on stage handing out the awards, clearly there for their appearance. Not only are these women used just to ‘decorate’ the stage but they are being offered up as a prize. Ya, ya it’s just a joke right? How about when Brianna McIvor, Co-Host of Electric Playground, was presenting an award and one of the hosts said to the audience, “Are the whistles for the games or for Brianna.” As if street harassment isn’t a huge problem already.

And just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse they threw in a few racist jokes as well. Assassin’s Creed II was nominated for seven awards and won the most of any game that night. The development team is from Montreal so naturally they have French accents. After the second or third thank you speech, co-host Victor Lucas commented “I love the multicultural vibe” clearly clueless as to what the hell he is saying. Nearly every person in that room was white and the vast majority male. I’m not sure what his definition of multiculturalism is, clearly he is not aware that a French Canadian accent is not exactly what folks mean when they talk about ‘multiculturalism’. At another point he joked about the accent of a woman who lives in Edmonton as if everyone who lives in Edmonton is a native English speaker. Not sure if it was the pressure of hosting a show or being on stage but that isn’t license to say stupid and offensive comments.

I couldn’t help but think how fitting my latest video remix “Too Many Dicks” was to this night’s events.

Tommy Tallarico from Video Games Lives kept talking about how globally influential and culturally significant video games are yet they still can’t manage to not alienate and exploit women. It’s no wonder that there are so few women involved in the industry when not only are most of the games clearly marketed exclusively to men but the gaming community is blatantly sexist (and apparently racist too). Sexist and racist jokes are often used in spaces that the joke teller believes is a safe space, as in their are no women or people of colour around. Clearly, Tallarico and Lucas believed they were in a safe space that night with the freedom to joke around about objectifying women and everyone in the room will laugh along. Hey gentlemen, I’m not laughing. And I think it’s important that we don’t laugh and if we have the opportunity to tell folks when they are being offensive.  This helps to create safe spaces for the rest of us, those of us that are the butt of the jokes. The joke teller will have to think twice before telling his next joke.

“Dare to make people uncomfortable, beginning with yourself… It may seem that such actions don’t amount to much until you stop for a moment and feel your resistance to doing them — your worry, for example, about how easily you could make people feel uncomfotable including yourself.  If you take that resistance to action as a measure of power, then your potential to make a difference is plain to see. The potential for people to feel uncomfortable is a measure of the power for change inherent in such simple acts of not going along with the status quo.“
- Allan G. Johnson, The Gender Knot

Did you get a chance to see “Buffy vs Edward: Twilight remixed“? It was recently nominated for a Webby! And it might be the only feminist anything that is nominated at all this year, which is why I think it’s so important that it wins the people’s choice award for best remix/mashup video! Currently it’s only in third place and it needs a big boost of votes to bring it to first.

There are only a few days left (voting ends on April 29th) and it only takes a few minutes to vote on the Webby YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/webby?x=remixmashup

Advertisers are tapping into some of the most misogynistic male fantasies when they use futuristic fembots to convince men to buy their products.  They are selling a fantasy of control by turning women into obedient, mute, homemaking, sex slaves.

Articles referenced in the video:

1. Heineken ‘DraftKeg’: The Most Sexist Beer Commerical Ever Produced? by Bob Garfield, Advertising Age article
2. The Gender Knot by Allan G. Johnson, I highly recommend this book to everyone!

This video now has English subtitles on YouTube and is available to be translated at DotSub into many different language.  Please help reach global audiences by translating!

Mad World: Fembots, Advertising and Male Fantasy

[intro music] “I’ve got some news for you, Fembots have feelings too”

As I was walking around the other day, I kept running into these billboards ads that say “RU Bot or Not” for Svedka Vodka, and it’s apart of this larger ad campaign that they have.  Some of the other ones say things like “Make your next trophy wife 100% titanium” or “Turn ons: stiff drinks and greased elbows.”

I was looking at the Svedka Vodka website and I noticed they have this Bot Builder where you can “create your perfect silicone clone, ready and willing to serve” or you can turn “yourself from hot to bot.”  And it gets even more disturbing when you get inside the program, because you have all these options of clothing choices and one of which is a french maid outfit and you can have your new french maid pose in these cute or sexy model poses and in addition you can give her martini hands so she can you drinks at your whim.

Let’s talk about fembots for a second then because in popular culture and historically fembots are the ultimate misogynistic male fantasy.  They are a mythic construct used to serve male desires.  These fembots are sex slaves and sex objects, ready and willing to serve and clean up after these men.

CLIP: Commercial for Phillips Moisture Shave System Ad [instrumental/electronic music]

So is she the accessory to the razor or is the razor the accessory to her?  I don’t really know but what I do know is that her whole reason for being is to serve this man.

CLIP: Commercial for Heineken Draught Keg Ad [electronic music]

Wait so her uterus is a keg ready to serve beer on demand?  I think Advertising Age actually covered it best, which is kind of surprising when they said that the “Heineken Draught Keg is arguably the most sexist beer commercial ever produced.”  Which is quite a large statement considering beer commercials are pretty sexist.  They went on to say that these commercials, “reduce half the world to a man-servicing beer tap.”

Why do advertisers love to use images that reduce all that women are into plastic, homemaking, obedient, sex slaves who don’t talk back, in fact they don’t talk at all and they even have an on and off switch.

Advertisers are tapping into a core element of patriarchy which is the obsession with control.  Author of The Gender Knot, Allan Johnson says, “As with any system of privilege that elevates one group by oppressing another, control is an essential element of patriarchy: men maintain their privilege by controlling women and anyone else who might threaten it.”  The fembot fantasy is an expression of total control especially over women.  And these commercials are selling men this fantasy of control associated with their product.

I love science fiction and what I love most about it is this opportunity to imagine alternative societies and futuristic technology that can improve our way of life and really be used as a tool for liberation but what these commercials are doing is taking this imaginary futuristic world and making it a tool of subordination and oppression.

CLIP: Commerical for FEMBOT (Bionic Woman Franchise]

“It’s the fembot new from Kenner and Jamie Summers the Bionic Woman sold separately.”

‘I’m Jamie Summers’

‘Oh no you’re not, I am, you’re a fembot!  Your paralyzer gave you away.’

‘She’s unmasked me, now I have to disguise myself as a mystery maiden no one will recognize me, not even Jamie ha ha’

“Fembot comes with everything seen here.  Jamie Summers, the Bionic Woman sold separately.”

Below is the playlist of the videos I showed:

Bechdel Test – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLF6sAAMb4s
Feminist Free Association – Girl Drive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oDEr8IT9IY
Revisioning Pretty Woman – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ2H37m_Yt8
Queering Real Housewives – http://elisakreisinger.wordpress.com/
Harry Potter and the Brokeback Mountain – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2009/03/03/harry-potter-and-the-brokeback-mountain/
It Started with a Kiss – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hs1W0OOQP4
Dance Floor Star Trek – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deQuFc3BP74
Too Many Dicks: Video Games – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PJ0JPLg_-8
I’m your man – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2009/03/02/im-your-man/
It Depends on What You Pay: Dollhouse – http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2009/07/24/dollhouse-it-depends-on-what-you-pay/
Women’s Work: Supernatural Vid http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/2009/04/08/womens-work/
Planet of the Arabs – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi1ZNEjEarw
Black as Me – http://vimeo.com/4080308
If Men Menstrated – http://vimeo.com/4638455
The Revolution will be Televised – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfJd0Q8HjPw