What is up with the plethora of disturbing sexist advertising for men's deodorant? Are they that scared of the simple joy of smelling nice?
Mitchum Man ads may just be your worst nightmare. And they're everywhere - on trains, on bar coasters, bus stops. Not only do they epitomize the worst of American masculinity, but promotes nonconsensual sexual behavior (see below). Change Happens covered this in August; our apologies for being super late on it.
Their website proudly displays a number of gems, like:
"If you're the only one who knows which remote controls what, you're a Mitchum man."
"A Mitchum Man's shirt is clean. His mind, not so much."
"If G is your favorite kind of string, you're a Mitchum Man"
"If your best man is holding onto your bachelor party pictures, you're a Mitchum Man."
It is not effective, it is not on the market and would take millions of dollars to make legal, but some scientists in Australia have found that you can block ducts that release sperm, "zap" sperm, or interrupt its production.
Professor Derek Abbott and his team from the University of Adelaide in South Australia have invented the first remote-controlled key fob that allows men to control a valve that can switch their sperm flow on and off as required.
The size of half a rice grain, the "fertility control micro-valve" is injected by a doctor into the vas deferens, the duct that carries sperm from the testes, a process that needs only a local anaesthetic. The valve can then open and close to control sperm flow out of the body.
I think the question is, not only will it be made legal, but will men use it?
"Men want new contraceptive methods," says Elaine Lissner, director of the non-profit Male Contraception Information Project in San Francisco. "A decade ago demand wasn't there and it was assumed women wouldn't trust men to take charge of birth control anyway. That has changed."
I do think there are men that want alternative forms of birth control. I know many of my boyfriends would have preferred other methods to birth control than me using hormonal birth control that made me irritable and have a decreased sex drive. One of my boyfriends even had a vasectomy, which I thought was great, but not for everyone obviously.
I think it is interesting that it is so difficult to the find the money to support research and development of effective male birth control. Yet, there are so many different kinds of women's birth control. Why is birth control always the responsibility of women? Also, several of the side effects listed are assumed side effects to the birth control that women have been using for decades. Why is it OK for women to take on the burden of not only taking birth control, but dealing with its side effects, yet it is a red flag for men?
Now don't get me wrong, I don't want anyone taking any form of birth control or trying any method without knowing fully well what its side effects are going to be, however, I am just noting that these same considerations weren't as fully considered when it was a woman's reproductive health at stake.
Would you or your partner use remote control sperm control?
Rev. Steve Emmett and Joe Kelly sent out an email this week announcing that their nonprofit advocacy group, Dads and Daughters, is closing shop after ten years of frustrating and failed fundraising efforts.
Over the last ten years they've committed themselves to spreading the word about the importance of fathers (stepfathers, male influences etc.) in daughters' lives, encouraging a renewed commitment to engaged parenting on the part of men, and particularly targeting the media's often gross misrepresentation of girls and young women.
When I was writing Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, I was really interested in the role that men play in influencing their daughters' body images, and Dads and Daughters was one of the only organizations that was looking at that issue as well.
Steve and Joe recommend these resources if you're looking to investigate the father-daughter dynamic in the future:
* Future of Fatherhood: DADs co-founder Joe Kelly's online & in-person resources for Dads, Daughters, and Professionals working with families.
* Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood: coalition making the world safe and fair for all children by countering harmful effects of marketing to children.
* New Moon Girl Media: girl-run media, plus parenting resources and blog by former DADs executive Nancy Gruver.
* Girl Scout Research Institute: valuable research on the healthy development of girls.
Thanks to both of them--and all their partners--for doing this important work.
Sometimes I google things like "feminism" or "sexism" and this time via a google search for sexism I came across this gem. It is a series of clips from Disney movies depicting masculinity and then deconstructing the ways these characterizations of manhood deploy as standard.
There are some other ones in the 'related' section such as this one on racism in Disney.
When Brian K. Vaughan’s science fiction comic epic Y: The Last Man began several years ago, Christine was right on it, praising its “mature and complex look at gender politics.”
Brought to life by Pia Guerra’s stunning artwork, Vaughan’s vision reveals the great potential of both the science fiction and comic genres. As Vaughan says, [...]
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Via Daily Kos, a must-watch. And just in case you have any doubts, there really is a Sen. John Cornyn from Texas and he used this video to introduce himself at the Republican state convention:
Yes, it’s just plain silly. But it’s also a hyperbolic presentation of a very real masculinity narrative that the [...]
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This one's about Barack, not Michelle. As Susan Faludi described in The New York Times this weekend, Republicans and right-wing media are scrambling to define Barack as womanly because he doesn't hunt or want to bomb the hell out of the rest of the world.
The attacks are already under way, as is evident if one enters the words "Obama" and "effeminate" into a search engine. The effeminacy canard lurks in Mike Huckabee's imaginings of Mr. Obama tripping off a chair and diving for the floor when confronted by a gunman, and in the words of Tucker Bounds, Mr. McCain's campaign spokesman, who depicted Mr. Obama as "hysterical."
News media blatherers and bloggers are taking up the theme. On MSNBC, Tucker Carlson called Mr. Obama "kind of a wuss"; Joe Scarborough, the morning TV talk show host, dubbed Mr. Obama's bowling style "prissy" and declared, "Americans want their president, if it's a man, to be a real man"; and Don Imus, the radio host, never one to be outdone in the sexual slur department, dubbed Mr. Obama a "sissy boy."
We've discussed this phenomenon before. Just as it's not okay to say an assertive woman is actually a man because she desires power and won't put up with your shit, it's not okay to say a man is actually a woman because he won't play dress-up in a flightsuit and codpiece. Get over the gender binary, people. Please.
One of the things I've long admired about Obama is his refusal to play the gender card. And looking at the growing support for Obama among women, it's clear that I'm not the only woman who is comfortable with male politicians who don't hew to gender stereotypes.
Predictably, some Democrats fret that Obama's refusal to play masculinity politics will mean electoral death. Faludi warns that 9/11 is still too fresh in our national psyche for us to feel comfortable electing a non-swaggering president. But I'd argue: Look how well that worked for John Kerry. I'm relieved Obama isn't playing that game again.
