Tag Archives: misogyny

How media sexism demeans women and fuels abuse by men like Weinstein

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Advertising continues to portray women as charming keepers of the home, making it harder to succeed at work.
Andrea44/flickr, CC BY-SA

Virginia García Beaudoux, University of Buenos Aires

The sexual abuse scandal currently embroiling media mogul Harvey Weinstein has stunned the United States, with Hollywood and the fashion industry declaring that “this way of treating women ends now.”

As an Argentinean woman who studies gender in the media, I find it hard to be surprised by Weinstein’s misdeeds. Machismo remains deeply ingrained in Latin American society, yes, but even female political leaders in supposedly gender-equal paradises like Holland and Sweden have told me that they are criticized more in the press and held to a higher standard than their male counterparts.

How could they not be? Across the world, the film and TV industry – Weinstein’s domain – continues to foist outdated gender roles upon viewers.

Women’s work

Television commercials are particularly guilty, frequently casting women in subservient domestic roles.

Take this 2015 ad for the Argentine cleaning product Cif, which is still running today. It explains how its concentrated cleaning capsules “made Sleeping Beauty shine.”

The prince could help clean up, but why bother when women can do it all?

In it, a princess eager to receive her prince remembers that – gasp – the floors in her castle tower are a total mess. Thanks to Cif’s magic scouring fluid, she has time not only to clean but also to get dolled up for the prince – who, in case you were wondering, has no physical challenges preventing him from helping her tidy up.

But why should he, when it’s a woman’s job to be both housekeeper and pretty princess?

Somewhat paradoxically, advertisements may also cast men as domestic superheroes. Often, characters like Mr. Muscle will mansplain to women about the best product and how to use it – though they don’t actually do any cleaning themselves.

Mansplaining domestic chores.

More recently, there’s been a shift – perhaps an awkward attempt at political correctness – in which women are still the masters of the home, but their partners are shown “helping out” with the chores. In exchange, the men earn sex object status.

Thanks for ‘helping out,’ hubby.

We’ve come a little way, baby

Various studies on gender stereotypes in commercials indicate that although the advertising industry is slowly changing for the better, marketing continues to target specific products to certain customers based on traditional gender roles.

Women are pitched hygiene and cleaning products, whereas men get ads for banks, credit cards, housing, cars and other significant financial investments.

This year, U.N. Women teamed up with Unilever and other industry leaders like Facebook, Google, Mars and Microsoft to launch the Unstereotype Alliance. The aim of this global campaign is to end stereotypical and sexist portrayals of gender in advertising.

As part of the #Unstereotype campaign, Unilever also undertook research on gender in advertising. It found that only 3 percent of advertising shows women as leaders and just 2 percent conveys them as intelligent. In ads, women come off as interesting people just 1 percent of the time.

Britain paves a path

Even before it was forced to reckon with allegations that Harvey Weinstein had also harassed women in London, the United Kingdom was making political progress on the issue of women’s portrayal in the media.

In July, the United Kingdom’s Advertising Standards Authority announced that the U.K. will soon prohibit commercials that promote gender stereotypes.

“While advertising is only one of many factors that contribute to unequal gender outcomes,” its press release stated, “tougher advertising standards can play an important role in tackling inequalities and improving outcomes for individuals, the economy and society as a whole.”

As of 2018, the agency says, advertisements in which women are shown as solely responsible for household cleaning or men appear useless around kitchen appliances and unable to handle taking care of their children and dependents will not pass muster in the U.K. Commercials that differentiate between girls’ and boys’ toys based on gender stereotypes will be banned as well.

Sticky floors

The U.K.‘s move is a heartening public recognition that gender stereotypes in the media both reflect and further the very real inequalities women face at home and at work.

Worldwide, the International Labor Organization reports, women still bear the burden of household chores and caretaking responsibilities, which often either excludes them from pay work or leaves them relegated to ill-paid part-time jobs.

In the U.K., men spend on average 16 hours per week on domestic tasks, while women spend 26. The European Union average is worse, with women dedicating an average of 26 weekly hours to men’s nine hours on caretaking and household tasks.

In Argentina, my home country, fully 40 percent of men report doing no household work at all, even if they’re unemployed. Among those who do pitch in, it’s 24 hours a week on caretaking and domestic chores for men. Argentinean women put in 45 hours.

You can do the math: On average, Argentinean women use up two days of their week and some 100 days annually – nearly one-third of their year – on unpaid household labor.

Real-world consequences

These inequalities, combined with advertising that reinforces them, generate what’s called the “sticky floors” problem. Women – whether would-be investment bankers or, I dare say, aspiring Hollywood stars – don’t just face glass ceilings to advancement, they also are also “stuck” to domestic life by endless chores.

The cultural powers that be produce content that represents private spaces as “naturally” imbued with female qualities, gluing women to traditional caregiving roles.

This hampers their professional development and helps keep them at the bottom of the economy pyramid because women must pull off a balancing act between their jobs inside and outside of the domestic sphere. And they must excel at both, all while competing against male colleagues who likely confront no such challenges.

Former U.S. president Barack Obama once pointed out this double standard in homage to his then-competitor Hillary Clinton. She, he reminded an audience in 2008, “was doing everything I was doing, but just like Ginger Rogers, it was backwards in heels.”

The ConversationThe sticky floor problem puts women in a position to be exploited by men like Weinstein, who tout their ability to help female aspirants to get unstuck. Until society – and, with it, the media we create – comprehend that neither professional success nor domesticity has a gender, these pernicious powerful dynamics will endure.

Virginia García Beaudoux, Professor of Political Communication and Public Opinion, University of Buenos Aires

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

About Kevin Spacey (and the others)…

Kevin Spacey presents his new movie Margin Call at the Berlin Film Festival 2011 (Wikimedia)

I’ve about had it with Hollywood. Between Austin’s film scene with Ain’t It Cool News’ Harry Knowles and Birth.Movies.Death’s Devin Faraci, Harvey Weinstein, and the various other sexual assault/harassment allegations that have surfaced from all corners of society, it’s clear that the problem connecting all of these is that Hollywood and other industries offer umbrellas of protection to those who have power, money, and–most often–penises. Those who are the least protected are the young (girls and boys), women in general, and those who come from marginalized and underrepresented communities, including–but not limited to–racial and cultural communities, the disabled, and those from the LGBT community.

Most of the cases we’ve heard about involve women facing lecherous, predatory men, such as the 80+ women who have come out to tell their stories involving Weinstein–including Rose McGowan and Annabella Sciorra, who say Weinstein raped them–and the 300+ women who say director James Toback sexually abused them. But there are also those cases involving men, such as Terry Crews, and minors. We’ve heard it from Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. We’ve heard it from those who have accused Bryan Singer. And now we’re hearing it from Broadway actor and Star Trek: Discovery star Anthony Rapp, who was preyed upon by Kevin Spacey when Rapp was 14 years old.

Rapp’s account–which you can read in full at Buzzfeed–is horrifying.

Rapp having to relive a memory he hadn’t told anyone about since it happened was made even more traumatic by the type of statement Spacey released as an “apology.”

There’s so much wrong with this statement–and folks are right to compare it to the equally obtuse and rambling statement Weinstein put out at the beginning of his saga, via The New York Times:

Both statements are exercises in trying to shift blame to anything and anyone other than themselves. For Weinstein, his scapegoats were the times he grew up in and his demons–which he does have, most definitely, however from actresses’ statements, he seemed untroubled by his demons until he had to issue an apology. For Spacey, his scapegoat is…being gay. Spacey certainly has his demons too, but they have nothing to do with his sexual orientation. They, like Weinstein’s, have everything to do with falling in lust with absolute control and absolute power.

To equate being gay to molestation is a two-fold act of cowardice and violence. First, the conflation is a slap in the face to the LGBT community, a community he has apparently run from his entire acting career, despite decades of rumors and direct questions about his sexual orientation. Secondly, it sets America’s progress with LGBT rights and attitudes back to the stone age. LGBT Americans have had to live with these types of regressive stereotypes for much longer than we straights have been aware of them. In fact, it’s straight America that has perpetuated these myths within our society. Again, the demon at work is absolute control and absolute power, and those who are in the majority have the power to control the narrative however they want. In this case, it’s straight people passing along the stereotype that those who are gay or otherwise along the spectrum are pedophiles and predators.

For Spacey to, as many have said, hide behind the rainbow flag now after he’s ran from it for so long is ugly and morally lacking. He should be ashamed of himself.

Speaking for those of us who review TV and film for a living, there’s the added moral condition of how to approach Spacey’s body of work after this bombshell.

I’ve followed the Weinstein saga closely, and provided my point of view to Bustle on how women in in the film criticism industry could come to terms with approaching Weinstein-backed films now that the facts are out in the open. One part of my opinion that got edited out (since most of us in the article were on the same wavelength and repeating each other), was that if it were a case of avoiding one actor and his filmography, say Woody Allen, then it’d be easy to avoid and remove our support from that actor. That’s what I’m going to do when it comes to Kevin Spacey. Just like with Weinstein, where there’s one story of wrongdoing, there’s bound to be more (whether or not they come forward).

It seems like Netflix is taking this avoidance approach with Spacey as well; the streaming network has announced that it will end House of Cards after the sixth season, which is currently in production. Netflix and Media Rights Captial’s joint statement (via The Hollywood Reporter)

“Media Rights Capital and Netflix are deeply troubled by last night’s news concerning Kevin Spacey. In response to last night’s revelations, executives from both of our companies arrived in Baltimore this afternoon to meet with our cast and crew to ensure that they continue to feel safe and supported. As previously scheduled, Kevin Spacey is not working on set at this time.”

Various celebrities, particularly those who are gay, also spoke out against Spacey’s conflating statement, as well as Beau Willimon, the creator of House of Cards.

Thankfully, the tide of voices has helped keep the narrative on Rapp’s story and not on the spin Spacey and his team were trying to pull (which, on some outlets, they succeeded). The focus should always be on the side of the victim and not on the perpetrator, who is still only out to control and use power, even when his (or her) back is up against the wall. If Hollywood could come to terms with its demons and finally rid the industry of predators, it’d be a much more enjoyable industry for actors and crew, film and TV critics, and the audience at large.

With that said, the best way to end this is with Rapp’s words on why he decided to come forward.

It’s not just O’Reilly and Weinstein: Sexual violence is a ‘global pandemic’

(l) Bill O’Reilly at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, CC BY 3.0, (r)Harvey Weinstein at the 2011 Time 100 Gala. (Photo credit: David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0)

Valerie Dobiesz, Harvard University and Julia Brooks, Harvard University

The recent exposure of widespread sexual predation in the American media industry, from Harvey Weinstein to Bill O’Reilly, has elicited shock and sparked debate on violence against women in the United States.

Sexual harassment isn’t the exclusive domain of show biz big shots. It remains alarmingly prevalent nationwide, even as other crimes are generally decreasing nationwide.

In the U.S., a 2006 study found that 27 percent of college women reported some form of forced sexual contact – ranging from kissing to anal intercourse – after enrolling in school. This sexual violence is heavily underreported, with just 20 percent of female student victims reporting the crime to law enforcement.

Nor is sexual harassment limited to the United States. The U.N. has called gender-based violence a “global pandemic.” As experts in emergency medicine and legal research at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, we believe it’s important to acknowledge that this issue transcends national borders and class boundaries to touch the lives of roughly 33 percent of all women worldwide.

A world of trouble

According to World Health Organization estimates, one in three women worldwide will experience either physical or sexual violence in her lifetime, many of them before the age of 15.

In fact, for many rural women, their first sexual encounter will be a forced one. Some 17 percent of women in rural Tanzania, 21 percent in Ghana, 24 percent in Peru, 30 percent in Bangladesh and 40 percent in South Africa report that their first sexual experience was nonconsensual.

Intimate partner violence is also pervasive globally. In one World Health Organization study, 22 to 25 percent of women surveyed in cities in England, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Zimbabwe reported that a boyfriend or husband had committed some form of sexual violence against them. Globally, up to 55 percent of women murdered are killed by their partners.

Violence against women takes many forms, ranging from psychological abuse to the kind of sexual predation, sexual assault and rape allegedly committed by Harvey Weinstein. Honor killings, physical attacks, female infanticide, genital cutting, trafficking, forced marriages and sexual harassment at work and school are also considered gender-based violence.

Rates range from country to country – from 15 percent in Japan to 71 percent in Ethiopia – but violence is, in effect, a ubiquitous female experience.

Sexual violence is committed at particularly high rates in crisis settings like war zones, refugee camps and disaster zones.

In these places, even humanitarian workers are not immune. Dyan Mazurana and her colleagues at Tufts University found that many female development-aid staffers in places such as South Sudan, Afghanistan and Haiti had experienced disturbing rates of sexual assault, often perpetrated by their own colleagues.

Explaining sexual violence

So what’s driving this pervasive phenomenon? Research reveals that there are multiple causes of sexual violence, among them gender inequality and power differentials between men and women.

For example, sexual violence occurs more frequently in cultures where violence is widely accepted and where beliefs about family honor, sexual purity and male sexual entitlement are strongly held.

Even in many countries that rank well on gender equality, including in the United States, weak legal sanctions against perpetrators of sexual violence can encourage and effectively condone such behavior.

So can cultural acceptance. Weinstein’s sexual predatory behavior was longstanding and well-known within the film industry, yet he was allowed to continue his abuse with impunity – until women began speaking up.

Likewise, Fox News renewed Bill O’Reilly’s contract even after he and the company had made at least six multi-million-dollar settlements with women who filed sexual harassment claims against him. Awareness of a problem is one thing; taking action is quite another.

Men with lower educational levels, or who have been exposed to maltreatment or family violence as children, are more likely to commit sexual violence themselves.

That’s because violence begets violence, a relationship that’s abundantly clear in the kinds of conflict zones where we work. Mass rape has long been used as a weapon of war, and has been well-documented during conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia and South Sudan.

Among the most salient cases are the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides. According to the U.N.‘s High Commissioner for Refugees, up to 500,000 Rwandan women were systematically raped in 1994 as part of an ethnic cleansing strategy, while tens of thousands of Bosnian women and girls were systematically raped between 1992 and 1995.

Psychological trauma

Wherever and however it happens, violence against women and girls poses a major public health problem for women and their communities.

Some 42 percent of women who experience intimate partner violence reported an injury
– including bruises, abrasions, cuts, punctures, broken bones and injuries to the ears and eyes – as a consequence of that abuse. Women who suffer violence are also 1.5 times more likely to have sexually transmitted diseases like HIV, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea, twice as likely to experience depression and drinking problems and twice as likely to have an abortion.

Violence against women is also closely associated with suicide and self-harm.

If there’s any silver lining to the Weinstein and O’Reilly scandals, it’s that in coming out against these high-profile men, dozens of women have helped to highlight not just the prevalence of sexual violence in the United States but also the societal norms that silence women and allow abusers to go unchecked.

Humanitarian organizations from the World Health Organization to the U.N. to the U.S. Agency for International Development have recognized that gender-based violence is not just a women’s issue. Addressing it requires working with men and boys, too, to counter the cultures of toxic masculinity that encourage or tolerate sexual violence.

After all, women’s rights are human rights, so sexual violence is everyone’s problem to solve.

The ConversationThe fact is, societies with high rates of sexual violence are also more likely to be violent and unstable. Research shows that the best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is how well its women are treated.

Valerie Dobiesz, Emergency Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Director of External Programs STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation, Core Faculty Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University and Julia Brooks, Researcher in international law and humanitarian response, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), Harvard University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

"Fresh Off the Boat" S1 Post-Mortem Pt. 2: Will Eddie Huang's Voiceovers Stick Around?

I’ve thought long and hard over the past few weeks (which were spent not rewatching the series, since I forgot I had to pack for my big move), and I’ve thought about all of my positives and critiques of this season of Fresh Off the Boat. I think most of my criticisms were said in the first part of this post, but at the time, Eddie Huang hadn’t used Twitter to dig an even deeper hole for himself.