This guest post is from Mindy, a regular commentor here and a contributor to the For Battle! group blog. It’s not often that I applaud the actions of a brewery, but in this case Fosters deserves a mention for taking… Read More ›
exploitation
SF Sunday: machines and freedom from slavery
From my Quotes File (which you can see serving up random quotes at the bottom of the sidebar):
The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture, and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)
I find the search for the perfect robot society a continuing feature of SF novels,
Saturday Links: “Ethnic” Food, Mother-Blaming, and more on sexy sports uniforms
Hoydenizen Vegan About Town has a terrific post up: “talking about things to eat (or: how the words people use to describe food make me feel like a freak)“. An excerpt:
I read Jay Rayner’s attempt at a week of veganism, where he suggests that “ethnic is the default position for the vegan.” I bet he uses ‘exotic’ ingredients in his cooking, too. I have an ethnicity; we all have ethnicities: the fact that the food I grew up with is easier to veganise than the stuff he ate as a child doesn’t make me ‘ethnic,’ it makes me Chinese. Using these words trivializes the decision I have made to be vegan, and it others my family and my whole freaking life, because using words like that aren’t just saying that I’m ‘different,’ they’re saying that I’m ‘other.’ And he is not alone in this, many people are guilty of this all the time. That you’re trying something you’ve never before heard of doesn’t make it ‘exotic,’ it makes it new to you.
Why I’m Not Pleased, Sexual Objectification Edition
I had “Women should be pleased” [that men sexually objectify them] echoing in my ears when I visited Shakesville the other day. The first thing I saw was this Wrangler jeans ad.
[trigger warning]
The HuffPo is off my reading list
That’s it, I guess. I’ve had the impression the Huffington Post was going downhill for a good long time now, and it’s now confirmed. This, on the front page?
Is not funny or clever. It’s just downright creepy and exploitative.
Women still the sex class in international elite sports
This photo is what passes for sports journalism at the Sydney Morning Herald nowadays. I did not crop this photo; the Herald did.
WWTTMD?
What would Tiananmen Tank Man Do?
I don’t think he’d watch the Olympics. Of course I can’t know this, because we don’t know who he was, whether he is still alive, or whether he would actually be an enormous fan of the Olympics right now.
Still, I am not watching these Olympics, simply because I can’t square my conscience with supporting the regime’s propaganda exercise.
Shonks and sensationalists
Andrew Funnell on today’s Radio National’s Media Report [transcript] examines the reaction to ABC-TV’s Gruen Transfer from the public and from within the industry. GT was a ratings hit, is being attributed as the source of new interest in advertising as a career from bright young things, and is also accused of doing more harm than good to the industry through the panel-members playing up to an existing image of advertisers as quipping show-ponies with a cynical streak.
The range of opinions about the show is interesting, and the controversy obviously plays into why the show has been renewed. To me the criticisms of the show as lightweight ring a very loud bell, as I was disappointed by the lack of substantive discussion regarding the manipulations of advertising – they keep on circling the issue and backing off.
Anyway, one line in the program caught my attention as especially well expressed:
How more vile (and thick (and don’t forget vile)) can McCain possibly be?
He pimped his wife to voters as a potential contestant in a local “beauty contest” that involves skimpy swimwear, topless parades and simulated sex acts – (edited to addwhich to be fair I’m sure he didn’t know was quite so “risque”, but it’s still totally objectifying his wife). (Video here of both McCain’s “quip” and a typical night’s entertainment in the contest) As I’m sure you’ll all
Sexual assault perp Kyle Payne is asking for it – feel free to respond
Kyle Payne, fauxminist, predator, and sexual assaulter, is up for open sentencing on August 11, though he is asking for it to be postponed so that he can continue his “counselling” and solicitation of “letters of support”.
Kyle Payne was a rape crisis advocate, women’s studies student, and resident advisor at his university. While “looking after” an unconscious drunk student in his care, he undid her shirt and took a photograph and video of her breast.
He has now published a statement on his blog, closed comments on it, and emailed a bunch of feminist bloggers to alert them to it. Yeah – he’s soliciting letters of support from feminists, in an effort to influence his sentence. Mm, that’ll go well:
Hoyden About Town 