Hey, hostile visitors! Do you have an opinion about, for example, Mary Koss’ rape research? Do you want to discuss it even though the topic has not actually come up by itself in any of the threads and none of my recent posts really have much to do with the specifics of anyone’s rape research? Well, from now on you can discuss it here with anyone who wishes to follow you to this thread.
Added bonus: If you continue to try to discuss it in other threads you’ll be banned!
This also applies to future derailers riding hobbyhorses of their own having nothing to do with Koss.
Happy discussing!
Note: If you wish to discuss the topics at hand, you know, topics directly related to my posts and/or to what other people are discussing and that aren’t, you know, personal hobbyhorses of yours that involve long screeds and various things that you’ve probably already cut and pasted into the comments sections of various other websites until you were banned from them for endless derailing and general asswipery, feel free to remain in the original threads.
And “don’t be angry” is one of those things that rarely goes over well on a feminist blog. Women are allowed to get angry. When we express that anger we are not battering anyone, especially not big powerful organizations that run giant ad campaigns.
At best this conversation is pointless…I’m going back to skimming adland’s site.
Is there anything funny? I could really use some humor right now, or something cute to wipe the mental image of the really obviously women and not dolls or babies on the meat trays out of my brain.
Ehh…probably, but I’m on one about ads using failed suicide by car to sell their car — http://adland.tv/adnews/yes-another-failed-suicide-car-honda/1367320783
There’s always anti oppression baby animals though.
Also, in case anyone comes along later and wonders what the hell happened here, something else I want to point out. Those images of the women wrapped up like meat? For a lot of women those are SCARY. On a visual level that can very easily read as threatening.
Anger and fear are more closely related emotions than we often acknowledge. So to tell a woman not to be angry about stuff like that? Really, really not OK.
Normally I’d suggest cute kitty videos, but given PETA’s tendency to kill them I don’t think that would make me feel any better right now.
How about a hatching octopus? https://mobile.twitter.com/Earth_Pics/status/331586746238259200/photo/1
BRB, going to go find my cat so I can give her a cuddle.
And I miss my old plec again…I could almost cuddle him. He was tiny when I got him, like, barely out of the fry stage. Hand fed him from that age and he was just fine eating from my head and getting fishie head rubs.
And then he got Ich…and then the law firm switched the office tank to goldfish and perks of dating the boss’s son, I got their plec. Who’s the cranky bugger you all know.
5 years later and I still can’t call this plec Plec, Plec was my baby. Yes, I have a soft spot for bottom feeders, and catfish.
Did I ever tell you I once petted a shark? It was a small shark, and its skin felt cool. My parents were not amused.
(I was leaning out of a boat at the time because I thought the sharks were pretty. Not sure if my mum thought it was going to bite me or thought I was going to fall out and forgot that I was a much better swimmer than she was.)
General parental fear about DANGERRRRR!!!! perhaps?
Definitely cool though. Sharks are awesome and we act like they’re oh so dangerous when they really aren’t.
PETA’s got a very, very bad track record for problematic, line-crossing stuff. They’ve used shock strategies that are aggressively racist, homophobic, transphobic, and fatphobic. They frequently compare animal treatment to rape, genocide, slavery, lynching, the Holocaust. While that may seem justified for some people who care about animals very much, it is actually very problematic, because PETA appropriates imagery about the exploitation and victimization of marginalized groups.
If you find it difficult to figure out your feelings about the misogyny in their ad campaigns, you might find it easier to assess your feelings about the other problems, and then work from there. For example:
“Is it okay for campaigners to dress themselves as members of the KKK to protest a dog show? (The idea being that dog shows ‘promote a master race.’) Many of the passersby believed that the campaigners were actually the KKK.”
1. No, that shit is not okay!
2. Perhaps that shit could be okay!
3. OMG SO EDGY AND AWARENESS RAISING.
Essay questions:
Do women, as a group, benefit directly from imagery that depicts them as abused, sexualized meat? Do animals, as a group, benefit directly from imagery that depicts women as natural objects of abuse? Do the images perpetuate and promote sexualized violence or disenfranchisement of women? Do the images exist in a culture that would not reverse them (are there similar images of exploited men? does the culture find that sort of thing natural or unnatural?) Do the images construct a compelling, coherent and helpful narrative that improves the welfare of animals? Who is meant to view these images? What messages do they walk away with? What impact will these campaigns have on those who are not “meant” to see them – abused women, hungry children, POC, Holocaust survivors, rape victims, fat people? Why are those who are not “meant” to see them – the ones who will be hurt most by them – not the powerful people in society, but the most vulnerable? What does the organization say to people who are hurt by these images? (Hint: if the only living survivor of a lynching is distressed by your appropriation of imagery of his lynched companions, and you respond “Get over it!”, then at some point we all have to admit that this has stopped being about making life nicer for animals.)
I’m sorry, I have too many feelings about the topic. Here is a quick brown fox jumping over a lazy dog. The cutest pangram you ever saw!
But they were really tiny sharks! Some of them are only 80 cms long. It was here – you go through in dinky little boats, so if we’d encountered a big one like a great white (which do exist in Malta) even my not-terribly-cautious child self would have had enough sense not to stick her hands in the water.
http://www.maltaairporttransfers.com/images/tours/bluegrottoinside_big.jpg
View not focused on the boat.
http://thefabweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/malta-61.jpg
I’ve been all over the place and that’s still the prettiest water I’ve ever seen. The colors once you get inside the grotto or just amazing. I know Malta’s not a cool place to go, but if you like caves it’s really worth checking out.
elodieunderglass
The thing about comparing animals’ experienes to racism, genocide, transphobia etc is that the animals whose lives we eat are worse than any human – and I mean *any* human – can imagine. In their millions. Every day. That’s their point. No human on earth lives like animals are expected to, in their millions. The lives of the animals we eat are absolutely atrocious.
@CassandraSays…
As a parent, I’d be:
a) terrified about you falling out the boat and being sucked underneath and chopped up by the propellers
b)terrified about the giant shark hiding unseen under the boat lunging out and pulling you off the boat
c)terrified by any other (unrealistic) danger that would take you from me and I should have foreseen and stopped.
I’d like to add that I do let my daughter do things that terrify me. It’s a letting go process which is necessary but terrifying.
In retrospect I really do feel bad for how often I terrified my parents, especially my mother since she was the one who was usually around when I was doing not-very-wise things like jumping off of 6 ft high walls, lifting rocks in the garden to try and find scorpions (because they look so cool!), or swimming all the way across a huge lake without telling her that I was planning to do so, aged 8. It was my dad who was on duty when I tried to grab a stingray’s tail though – good times.
I swear, the scenarios you dream up in your head are far worse. But, yup the walls,scorpions, lakes thing would be terrifying.
@CassandraSays
What happened with the sting ray? Kids round here like to scare each other saying there’s a sting ray in the water (usually a rock) and that fin that went by? Totes a shark (actually a dolphin).
I think Mr BigMomma is more chill than me about risk. It’s a good balance
My talk is totally trivial shit
A bat just flew in here! A bat is flying around my kitchen
My dad grabbed me before I could grab the ray and explained that swimming with them was OK but they wouldn’t like it if I grabbed them. My Dad was more chill about risk too, mostly because he was more athletic so the stuff I was doing made sense to him. My mother had really bad eyesight, and she was terrified of being underwater, so my water-based adventures and tendency to run around like a cartoon tasmanian devil scared the crap out of her.
RE Sharks and rays, the funny thing is that I can remember being scared of big sharks, but not of rays (too pretty I guess, plus the way they move doesn’t look threatening), and I don’t remember being afraid of barracuda at all, even though in fact if you encounter a school of them you’re in trouble.
I was scared of jellyfish though. I guess “pain” is a concept that makes more sense to a small child than “potential death”.
Cassandra, your childhood experiences with wildlife would make a great children’s book.
CASSANDRA! NO! Don’t pet that fish!
He will not give you any wish!
That scorpion is not your friend.
Introduce yourself instead!
Do not pet the nice stingray.
He wants to swim. He will not play.
If you were a stingray, too –
You would get mad when kids pet you!
Do not tug the sharkey’s tail.
He is full of rage and whale.
Maybe read to him instead.
His favorite book is mostly red.
CASSANDRA, NO, WHAT THE FUCK?!
WHY DON’T YOU EVER PET A DUCK.
OR A FUCKING LAMB OR A NICE BUNNY.
THIS BASILISK JUST ISN’T FUNNY!