Question of the Day
We've done this one before, but it's always a fun one: What's your favorite soup?
Space Cowboy and I are both professional soup aficionados and can very nearly talk about soup for hours at a time. (Sign up for our Soupology 101 course at the Shakesville Learning Annex!) I'm not sure anything I've ever done has impressed him as much as figuring out the secret ingredient in his Favorite Chicken Soup of All Time.
(It was ketchup.)
As for my favorite soup, give me pretty much anything with "bisque" or "chowder" in the name, and I'm a happy lady.
Photo of the Day
US President Barack Obama appears on 'The Tonight Show With Jay Leno' at NBC Studios on October 25, 2011 in Burbank, California. [Getty Images]I'm posting this for two reasons: 1. To give a heads-up to anyone who might want to see the President start working what will be his 2012 general audience election material; 2. Because I love this picture, which reflects one of the things I have always liked and admired about President Obama: He is a statesperson with an infectious grin. And if anyone believes that to be a superficial attribute of a president, I would ask you to recall living for eight years with the sneering visage of a small-minded nincompoop as the face of our nation.
Obama's Student Loan Initiative Details
I'm just going to go ahead and publish the entire press release, rather than try to tease out which pieces of information will be most important, and we can discuss all the details in comments:
Office of the Press Secretary
____________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 25, 2011
WE CAN'T WAIT: OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO LOWER STUDENT
LOAN PAYMENTS FOR MILLIONS OF BORROWERS
Actions Offer Recent Graduates an Opportunity to
Consolidate Loans and Reduce Interest Rates
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Obama Administration announced it is taking steps to increase college affordability by making it easier to manage student loan debt. The announcement is part of a series of executive actions to put Americans back to work and strengthen the economy because we can't wait for Congressional Republicans to act.
The Administration is moving forward with a new "Pay As You Earn" proposal that will reduce monthly payments for more than one and a half million current college students and borrowers. Starting in 2014, borrowers will be able to reduce their monthly student loan payments to 10 percent of their discretionary income. But President Obama realizes that many students need relief sooner than that. The new "Pay As You Earn" proposal will allow about 1.6 million students the ability to cap their loan payments at 10 percent starting next year, and the plan will forgive the balance of their debt after 20 years of payments. Additionally, starting this January an estimated 6 million students and recent college graduates will be able to consolidate their loans and reduce their interest rates.
"In a global economy, putting a college education within reach for every American has never been more important," President Obama said. "But it's also never been more expensive. That's why today we're taking steps to help nearly 1.6 million Americans lower their monthly student loan payments. Steps like these won't take the place of the bold action we need from Congress to boost our economy and create jobs, but they will make a difference. And until Congress does act, I will continue to do everything in my power to act on behalf of the American people."
"College graduates are entering one of the toughest job markets in recent memory, and we have a way to help them save money by consolidating their debt and capping their loan payments. And we can do it at no cost to the taxpayer," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
Current law allows borrowers to limit their loan payments to 15 percent of their discretionary income and forgives all remaining debt after 25 years. However, few students know about this option. Students can find out if they are currently eligible for IBR [here]. Last year, the President proposed, and Congress enacted, a plan to further ease student loan debt payment by lowering the IBR loan payment to 10 percent of income, and the forgiveness timeline to 20 years. This change is set to go into effect for all new borrowers after 2014—mostly impacting future college students.
Today, the Administration is proposing to offer even more immediate relief to many current college students by giving them the chance to limit loan payments to 10 percent of their discretionary income starting in 2012. In addition, the debt would be forgiven after 20 years instead of 25, as current law allows. For many who struggle to manage their student loan debt – including teachers, nurses, public defenders and others in lower-paying jobs – these proposed changes could reduce their payments by hundreds of dollars each month. Overall, this proposal would provide an estimated 1.6 million borrowers with more manageable monthly payments.
The Administration is also planning to offer student borrowers the chance to better manage their debt by consolidating their federal student loans. Today, approximately 5.8 million borrowers have both a Direct Loan (DL) and a Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) that require separate payments, which makes them more likely to default. To address the needs of these borrowers, the Administration will allow borrowers the convenience of a single payment to a single lender for both loans. Borrowers who take advantage of this consolidation option, which begins in January, would also receive up to a 0.5 percent reduction in their interest rate on some of their loans, which means lower monthly payments that would save hundreds of dollars in interest. Eligible borrowers will be contacted by their federal loan servicer early next year with information on how to consolidate.
These changes carry no additional cost to taxpayers.
Additional Announcements:
As part of the "Know Before You Owe" project, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in collaboration with the Department of Education, will release today a Financial Aid Shopping Sheet -- a draft model financial aid disclosure form. This sheet will be a tool that colleges and universities could use to help students better understand the type and amount of aid they qualify for and easily compare aid packages offered by different institutions. The form would also make the total costs -- and risks -- of the student loans clear before they enroll by outlining their total estimated student loan debt, monthly loan payments after graduation and additional costs not covered by federal aid.
The CFPB is taking feedback on how to further improve the form, especially looking for input from college students and their families. They can [log in here] to sign up to provide feedback on the CFPB's website. Building on the model of the "Financial Aid Shopping Sheet", the President has also tasked the Chief Technology Officer with further leveraging data and technology to help provide college-bound students and parents with more comparative information about college costs and college aid so they can make more informed decisions about where to enroll.
In addition, the U.S. Small Business Administration, as part of the White House-led Startup America initiative, has launched a website to walk young entrepreneurs through the process of reducing their monthly student loan payments. URL.
Also, in response to the President's call to action to promote high-growth entrepreneurship across the country, today the Young Entrepreneur Council's new private-sector Gen Y Fund has committed to investing $10 million in as many as 100 Millennial-generation startups, including a promise to pay down any of these young entrepreneurs' remaining federal student loan obligations over the next three years.
###
Quote of the Day
"A lot of the people on the staff said 'Just let Block be Block.' That's what it was all about."—Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's chief of staff, Mark Block, giving an explanation equally as asinine as the campaign advert for which he was providing it.
If you haven't yet seen the totally trenchant Cain 2012 campaign advert featuring Block being Block, here ya go:
Mark Block, a middle-aged white man, in close-up, straight to the camera, with quick-cut edits and music that might suggest this clip thinks it's from a film called The Block Identity: Mark Block here. Since January, I've had the privilege of being the chief of staff to Herman Cain and the chief operating officer of the Friends of Herman Cain. Tomorrow is one day closer to the White House. I really believe that Herman Cain will put UNITED back in the United State of America, and if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be here. We've run a campaign like nobody's ever seen. But then, American's never seen a candidate like Herman Cain. We need you to get involved because, together, we can do this. We can take this country back!Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.
Music swells, camera zooms in on Block, who smokes a cigarette. Cut to extreme close-up of Herman Cain grinning and chuckling, with text onscreen reading: "Herman Cain / President 2012 / HermanCain.com / Paid for by Friends of Herman Cain, Inc."
True Tales of Gender Essentialism at the Dog Park
Dudley looks like a girl.
That's what I am routinely told by people who refer to Dudley as "she," or "her." She's so pretty. What's her name? I never correct them—I don't care if they think Dudley is female, and neither does Dudley—but they assume that I care, and they care that they got it wrong, and, upon realizing their mistake when learning his name or spotting his male bits, they are deeply embarrassed. Sometimes, they apologize; always, they explain why they erred. He looks like a girl.
Dudley doesn't, actually, look like a female greyhound, to anyone who knows the breed—but that's not what they mean, anyway. What they mean is that Dudley is long and lithe and slender and graceful, that he has a narrow face and a frame that looks impossibly delicate considering its strength.
And even more than that, what they mean is that Dudley has a gentle demeanor. What they mean is that he acts like a girl.
Of course, there is no such thing as a girl's disposition, or a girl's appearance. Girls—and women—come in all different shapes and sizes, their faces with an endless variety of bone structures, their personalities as unique and plentiful as there are girls and women in the world. But when someone tells me that Dudley looks like a girl, to explain their own assumption, they are not talking about any sort of real girl, or real woman; they are talking about stereotypes of girls and women, and they are speaking in the language of gender essentialism.
It was an interesting sociological experiment having a dog who "looks like a girl" even before we got a second dog—but now it has become more interesting still, because Zelda "looks like a boy."
He's so handsome. What's his name? … Oh, she looks like a boy.
What they mean is that Zelda is short and squat and powerful, that she has a strong jaw and a square stance, that she looks rugged and tough—a scrapper.
And even more than that, what they mean is that Zelda has an aggressive demeanor (some of which is projected onto her because of the prejudices about black dogs and aggression). What they mean is that she acts like a boy.
Like the stereotypes of boys of men.
These are human stereotypes, which are in conflict even with gender-based stereotypes about dogs, which posit that bitches (where do you think it comes from?) are more aggressive and difficult and willful than male dogs, who are supposed to be easier and sweeter and more compliant. But when we anthropomorphize dogs, we impose human gender-based stereotypes on them instead, superseding the dog gender-based stereotypes we created for them.
Thus does Dudley's passive nature mark him as girlish, and Zelda's boisterous nature mark her as boyish.
I mean, she is partly made of puppy dogs' tails, but this is mere coincidence.
Even to the most casual observer, Dudley can be seen to exhibit behaviors that are classically coded in humans as "male," too—but, just as humans do with one another, they ignore the behaviors that are marked as the opposing genders', in order to maintain the pretense of gender essentialism. Maude forbid we acquiesce that humans have a range of behaviors that are not actually gender-specific. Something like that comes perilously close to suggesting we are equal!
It's fascinating to watch this vigilant maintenance of rigid binary gender roles play out in people's interactions with my dogs. Girls behave like this. Boys behave like this. So much insecurity about their own gender conformity, spilling out as projected expectations onto two unsuspecting wee mutts.
Often, I haven't been sure what to say in these situations, trying to find some balance of reassuring a stranger they need not be embarrassed at misgendering my dog and doing a little subtle teaspooning about the oppressive reliance on gendered stereotypes. But recently, I noticed that Iain and I had basically ended up with dog avatars of ourselves. I pointed this out to him one evening: "A tall, white-and-ginger purebread male with a more passive personality, and a short, roundy, dark-haired female mutt with a more aggressive personality? Sound familiar?" He laughed. "Oh my god."
Well. That certainly made strangers' observations about our dogs' gender all the more interesting, as I considered every accusation that Iain does not "have balls" and every accusation that I do, because we share housework or consider one another equals. But it also gave me the words for which I had been searching, when someone observes, for example, that Zelda doesn't act "like a girl."
"She does, actually," I say. "She just takes after me."
Domestic Violence Awareness Month
[Originally published on Oct 5th & 15th, 2011]
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Domestic violence occurs within every class, age group, race, and religion. It happens within same and different sex partnerships. It happens whether people are married, living together, or dating. Approximately one in four women has been a victim of domestic violence. Too often society--like with rape--places the blame on the victim and not the perpetrator. We need to change that.
What is it?*
Physical Abuse It isn't "only" hitting, slapping, choking, shoving. It also is using the body to intimidate. Physical abuse is also causing fear and intimidation via punching holes in walls/doors and throwing objects. It is intentionally scaring a partner by driving unsafely. It is preventing a partner from leaving their home.
Sexual Abuse When a person submits to sexual acts out of fear or coercion, it is rape. Capitulation does not equal consent. If a partner must "give in" because of fear of the consequences of saying no: that is part of sexual abuse. Remember: You always, ALWAYS, have a right to say no. Married or not. "Been a long time" or not. Always and without fear.
Emotional Abuse It is real--not being hit or raped doesn't mean not being abused. Emotional abusers isolate their victims. Emotional abusers will use emotional blackmail, guilt, and shame to get victims to stay and may threaten suicide if they leave. They verbally assault their partners with name-calling, mockery, public & private humiliation, and threats. They may expect their partners to ask their "permission" to do things. Emotional abusers can also be ones who constantly "know what's best" and blows up/rages if their partner doesn't submit to their "advice" (control). Economic abuse is a sub-category of emotional abuse: abusers use the finances to exert control over their partners.
If you are in an abusive situation (physical or not) you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline (US & Canada): 1-800-799-SAFE or see their site. (they have a great list of resources on their site, as well)
RAINN is a particular resource for those who are being sexually abused: 1.800.656.HOPE or see their site.
*Not intended to be a comprehensive listing
lol your Freudian oar
This Chaps menswear ad is not only hilaripathetically Freudian, but has inspired me to invent a new portmanteau to describe the models they chose as their Perfect Couple: Kyriarchetype.
Kyriarchy + Archetype = Kyriarchetype, the perfect model of intersectional privilege to which we are meant to aspire.
This is a real thing in the world.
The "Smooth Groove" Camel Toe Prevention Product
Soon to be sold, one can only hope and assume, at the finest Emporiums of Self-Hatred near you!
Yes, ladies with vulvas, this is the product you didn't even know you needed for a problem you didn't even know you had until it was given a grody name by the LadyBody Police. Just slip the "Smooth Groove" (gross) down your pants and—voila!—the evidence of your womanliness has been sufficiently masked so that people aren't offended by the fact that you have a vulva.
"Camel Toe" is, of course, supposed to be fundamentally different and uniquely unseemly because, um, because, uh, because, well, never mind that. It's just suuuuuuper yucky, and ladies are definitely supposed to bear that in mind while purchasing pants that should perfectly hug the curves of their rear-ends while, simultaneously, perfectly masking the contours of their labia.
(See also: Bras snug enough to enhance cleavage but not create the monstrous appearance of "side boobs" or "back fat.")
Over at xojane, Jess rightly notes that the "Smooth Groove" is "not just good for a laugh; it's also an illustration of how industry can manufacture and then fulfill a need by making you insecure about your body."
And "insecure" is frankly too polite: The "Smooth Groove" website asserts that camel toe is "the most embarrassing taboo there is for us girls." Got that? Evidence of female body parts is "the most embarrassing taboo" for women. We should not merely be insecure about our bodies, but ashamed of our very womanhood.
I can hardly conceive of more emblematic, or more horrible, substantiation of the profundity of institutional misogyny in our culture than the admonishment to be perfect women by denying and treating as shameful evidence of our womanhood.
There are people who will argue that a "little thing" like the "Smooth Groove" is not problematic, and that it is not misogynistic. But if "misogyny" is to have any meaning at all, a product that encourages women with vulvas to treat them as gross, as embarrassing, as less than, that implicitly exhorts us to rip our womanhood from our humanity, that admonishes us to deny, to be ashamed of, our womanhood, in part or in whole, thus requesting of us to subvert our own humanity, must be regarded as deeply, and evidently, misogynistic.
This is why I am a feminist: To ignore subversion of my humanity is to participate in my own marginalization. And that I cannot, will not, do.
[H/T to Shaker Raaven.]
Number of the Day
48%: The percentage of fish collected from "134 restaurants, grocery stores, and seafood markets from Leominster to Provincetown" in Massachusetts that were found by the Boston Globe being "sold with the wrong species name."
The sliver of raw fish sold as white tuna at Skipjack's in Foxborough was actually escolar, an oily, cheaper species banned in Japan because it can make people sick. The Alaskan butterfish at celebrity chef Ming Tsai's Blue Ginger in Wellesley was really sablefish, traditionally a staple at Jewish delicatessens, not upscale dining establishments.From Part One of a two-part series. Part Two is here.
At Chau Chow Seafood Restaurant in Dorchester, the $23 flounder fillet turned out to be a Vietnamese catfish known as swai - nutritionally inferior and often priced under $4 a pound.
Those were among the findings of a five-month Globe investigation into the mislabeling of fish. It showed that Massachusetts consumers routinely and unwittingly overpay for less desirable, sometimes undesirable, species - or buy seafood that is simply not what it is advertised to be. In many cases, the fish was caught thousands of miles away and frozen, not hauled in by local fishermen, as the menu claimed. It may be perfectly palatable - just not what the customer ordered. But sometimes mislabeled seafood can cause allergic reactions, violate dietary restrictions, or contain chemicals banned in the United States.
...The results underscore the dramatic lack of oversight in the seafood business compared with other food industries such as meat and poultry. Nationally, mislabeled fish is estimated to cost diners and the industry up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually, according to the National Fisheries Institute, a trade group.
It happens for a range of reasons, from outright fraud to a chef's ignorance to the sometimes real difficulty of discerning one fillet from another. But industry specialists say money is commonly the motivator: It's a way to increase profits - a cheaper fish sold as something more pricey - on the assumption that customers will not detect the difference.
[Via Susie.]
Occupy Everywhere & Economic News Round-Up
Here's some of what I've been reading this morning...
CNN—Wall Street discontent high but Occupy Wall Street largely unknown:
Although most Americans don't trust Wall Street, that hasn't translated into full support—or understanding—of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Despite large majorities who think that Wall Street bankers are greedy, overpaid and dishonest, four in ten don't have an opinion about the weeks-long protests, according to a new CNN/ORC International poll released Monday.Hmm. So USians are somehow not hearing about the Occupy Movement. I wonder why that could be. Curious.
Among those who have an opinion, the public is split on how they feel about Occupy Wall Street. Thirty-two percent of Americans say they have a favorable view of the movement that has spread from Wall Street to Chicago, and that even cropped up at the most recent CNN presidential debate in Las Vegas. Twenty-nine percent of the nation says they have an unfavorable view of Occupy Wall Street.
But opinions are clear about Wall Street itself. Eight in ten say Wall Street bankers are greedy, 77% say they're overpaid, and two-thirds say Wall Street bankers are dishonest, a number that has gone up by a third in roughly two decades.
Roy Greenslade at The Guardian—Gannett and Newsquest executives indulge in 'bonus excess':
USA Today, the paper owned by Gannett, carried an editorial on 12 October about "five good reasons" for the Occupy Wall Street protest.It's not just that the 1% controls most of the wealth; they control most of the media, too.
Number two on the paper's list was "bonus excess".
...The week before the editorial was published, Craig Dubow resigned as Gannett's chief executive and the board granted him about $37m in retirement, health and disability benefits.
That comes on top of a combined $16m in salary and bonuses in the last two years.
...For the record, as I reported earlier this year, Newsquest's chief executive, Paul Davidson, has had his snout in the trough too.
In other Occupy Everywhere news...
The Guardian: Occupy Wall Street puts spotlight on police stop-and-frisk tactics.
New York Daily News: Occupy Wall Street sympathizer creates 'I'm Getting Arrested' app to help protesters.
TruthOut: Wall Street Firms Spy on Protesters in Tax-Funded Center.
Kenyon Farrow at The American Prospect: [TW for racism] Occupy Wall Street's Race Problem.
CBS Dallas: [TW for sexual violence] Police Investigating Possible Sexual Assault of Teen at Occupy Dallas.
Portland Press Herald: [TW for violence] Chemical bomb tossed
into Occupy Maine encampment.
San Francisco Chronicle: Cops arrest Occupy Oakland protesters.
And in economic news...
Greg Sargent in the WaPo—How Obama's jobs policies would really impact the rich (hint: not much): "Any senators—Democrat or Republican—who vote against the individual pieces of Obama's jobs bill on the grounds that they impose a new surtax on millionaires are protecting the extremely narrow interests of an extremely tiny minority of their own constituents. I've got some new numbers for you that illustrate this in fresh detail: They reveal that the surtaxes would be paid by an infinitessimally small percentage of American taxpayers, and that the surtaxes themselves would constitute an infinitessimally tiny percentage of the income of the wealthy."
The Hill—House Dems: Obama's response to mortgage crisis is insufficient:
Just hours after the Obama administration unveiled enhancements to its anti-foreclosure efforts, House Democrats are already saying it doesn't go nearly far enough to help the millions of homeowners still struggling from the housing bust.Yves Smith agrees. Krugman is withholding judgment until he has time to dig into the details.
"It's far too little, it's just baby steps," Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), a longtime critic of the administration's housing policies, said in a phone interview. "They're still not getting it."
That on which we can all surely agree is that Rick Perry's Tax and Spending Reform Plan is garbage.
Hey, speaking of garbage economics, here's a good article about how Mitt Ronmey's business practices helped shape the garbage economy in which we're all currently living. Seriously, it's long, but read the whole thing. 'Tis worth it.
And on a last lolsob note: Obama campaign brings on ex-lobbyist as senior adviser. Of course.
The Republican Party, Folks
Actual Headline: Medical help for illegal immigrants could haunt Mitt Romney.
Actual Sub-Head: "On the Republican campaign trail, he derides any such public aid. But the healthcare law he signed as Massachusetts governor allows it."
Actual Lede: "The Massachusetts healthcare law that then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed in 2006 includes a program known as the Health Safety Net, which allows undocumented immigrants to get needed medical care along with others who lack insurance. Uninsured, poor immigrants can walk into a health clinic or hospital in the state and get publicly subsidized care at virtually no cost to them, regardless of their immigration status."
Providing healthcare to humans who need it, irrespective of whether they carry an arbitrary piece of paper, and treating healthcare as a right of all people, not a privilege of the lucky few—a policy which I would describe as basic fucking decency—will haunt Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on the campaign trail.
It's just not hateful enough for the Compassionate Conservatives.
Recommended Afternoon Economics Reading
Reuters—Obama to announce actions on housing:
President Barack Obama this week will announce a series of actions to help the economy that will not require congressional approval, including an initiative to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages, according to a White House official.Obama will also unveil a student loan initiative until Wednesday, details about which I will post when they become available. For now, more on the housing stuff...
...The first of the initiatives will be unveiled during Obama's three-day trip to western states beginning Monday.
He will discuss the changes in mortgage rules at a stop in Nevada, which has one of the hardest-hit housing markets in the country.
The Obama administration has been working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to find ways to make it easier for borrowers to switch to cheaper loans even if they have little to no equity in their homes.
The FHFA intends to loosen the terms of the two-year-old Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), which helps borrowers who have been making mortgage payments on time but who have not been able to refinance as their home values have dropped.
Washington Post—Obama's efforts to aid homeowners, boost housing market fall far short of goals: "President Obama pledged at the beginning of his term to boost the nation's crippled housing market and help as many as 9 million homeowners avoid losing their homes to foreclosure. Nearly three years later, it hasn't worked out. ... The Obama effort fell short in part because the president and his senior advisers, after a series of internal debates, decided against more dramatic actions to help homeowners, worried that they would pose risks for taxpayers and the economy, according to numerous current and former officials."
That WaPo piece is long, but it's really, really worth your time to read in its entirety. Also see Digby for her typically excellent commentary.
I Write More Letters
by Shaker Moderator Aphra_Behn
[Trigger warning for misogyny, gender essentialism, violence, sexual assault and harassment, rape culture, domestic abuse, bullying.]
TO: Mr. Jim Trebilcock
Executive Vice President of Marketing
Dr Pepper-Snapple Group
U.S.A.
Are you there, Mr. Trebilcock? It's me, Aphra.
I don't know if you got a chance to look at the letter I sent you last week about the Dr Pepper Ten campaign designed by Don Draper your totally not-stuck-in-the-1960s marketing team. In it, I raised concerns about aspects of your campaign such as a commercial which derides "feminine" taste in films, and a Facebook campaign which includes such items as an app where men can publicly shame each other for failing to live up to "masculine" behaviors (the "Ten Man'Ments") and a game wherein players may shoot stereotypically "feminine" items like high heels and lipstick.
The response I received from Dr Pepper-Snapple Consumer Relations was essentially the same boilerplate response that at least two other Shakers got. And having read it, I can only guess the author was completely unacquainted with (a) my original letter and (b) anti-feminist Bingo.
(Spoiler Alert: You've got the central square covered!)
Now I'm all for efficiency and mass production, but before you go Henry Ford with your replies to unhappy customers, you might want to take just a quick moment to consider: Is implying that my customers are humorless, hysterical, and colossally unobservant via form letter is really the best way to go?
(Spoiler Alert: It's really, really, not.)
And in the interest of doing you a favor, I'm going to craft a totally personalized response to your letter, and let you know exactly where you might re-think things.
Let's start here:
Thank you for writing to us about Dr Pepper TEN and allowing us to respond to your concerns. I am a woman who loves the full flavor of Dr Pepper TEN and the fact that it’s only 10 calories. When I first saw the tongue-in-cheek advertising campaign and the tagline, my reaction was, "I'll be the judge of that." In other words, no one is going to tell me what I can eat or drink.Well, that clears up that, doesn't it? YOU GOT A WOMAN TO SAY IT'S OK! Now that your anonymous staffer has waved the Wand of Erasing Sexism +10) over the campaign, I can see I was totally wrong...
Hey, wait. No, that's actually not how it works.
You don't get to trot out a member of an oppressed group to say that sexism is okay and then have all the nasty implications go away. Women do not have a hive-mind. And some women have good reason to participate in their own oppression; for example, when one's employer is rolling out a massively misogynist advertising campaign and wants one to opine on it. Offering up one example and telling your consumers that this is the right reaction is not only insulting, it's ridiculous. As a matter of fact, sexism is not just a matter of opinion. I think you'll see what I mean as we go along.
We have a huge female customer base that has been satisfied with Diet Dr Pepper as their beverage of choice for years; however we learned through extensive market research that there was a gap in our male audience that was looking for a low-calorie alternative to regular Dr Pepper that lacked the diet imagery. We created Dr Pepper TEN to fill that void. Dr Pepper TEN features steel-grey packaging with rivets and a manly tagline, "It's Not For Women."Now, I realize you think your customers have the observational abilities of a particularly distracted tree sloth. But I think I am on safe ground noting that anyone who writes you about this product ALREADY knows you are marketing to men. You want to open new marketing ground? Great! Fantastic! Awesome! Forget Team Jacob, forget Team Edward—GO TEAM CAPITALISM!!! Woot! Yay! *sparkles*
But there are ways to market to men that don't involve denigrating women, the feminine, and any man who doesn't fit a very narrow gender stereotype. In using subtractive masculinity as your marketing strategy, you denigrate a very wide swath of the human race, despite your claim that:
We also know Dr Pepper TEN will appeal to both men and women, however the marketing strategy is tailored to our market research and filling the need of the male target with the tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign.If I follow your logic, telling women that something is off-limits is actually a way to welcome women with open arms.
Mr. Trebilcock, your logic is not like our earth logic.
Because, make no mistake, every single fucking day, women and girls receive the message loud and clear that certain things are off-limits to them because of their gender. Military women are sexually harassed and assaulted so often, by their comrades, that the resultant psychological trauma has its own moniker: MST, or Military Sexual Trauma. Any woman who dares run for political office will quickly find herself subjected to demeaning sexist stereotypes and generally treated as less-than human. Girls and women in gaming spaces must put up not only with a deeply hostile culture, but with massively sexist designs built right into many games.
Humorless, dull feminist that I am, I translate those messages as a clear message to women and girls: THIS IS NOT FOR WOMEN. But according to the logic your Consumer Relations team is giving me, I now see that I should interpret them as "COME ON IN, LADEEEEZ! THE WATER'S WARM!"
Are you kidding? In a world where I, along with other women and girls, deal with sexist shit being flung at me every day, do you really think I'll respond to one more dinosaur-sized turd by saying "Ohhhh! Dr Pepper, you scamp! This turd's different! It's so very inviting!"
We hope you, too, will come to see our advertising campaign for what it is, a humorous take on the many men who are worried about their waistlines but are too "manly" to drink a diet soda.Oh shit. Humor? Really? Wow, I had not picked up on that at all!!! Oh well, nothing to see here, move along...
No. Wait. Saying excuse "it's a joke" doesn't, in fact, make it okay. That's the excuse of bullies from the playground on up. It doesn't fly in nursery school. And it doesn't fly here.
My ex used to make hilarious "jokes" about my alleged feminine foibles that made us late to parties and outings, when in reality we were often late because of his last-minute shouting and agitation that reduced me to tears. He used to make "tongue-in-cheek" comments about how my graduate work really was an excuse for loafing, comments made especially hilarious when he "accidentally" tried to burn my doctoral dissertation notes. He had many a "humorous" take on my alleged need for a keeper/minder/babysitter, which explained—in a FUNNY way!—his need to constantly keep tabs on my movements, my friends, even my conversations with family.
He was a real card! And we haven't even gotten to the part where he threatened me physically. That was a real laugh-a-palooza.
(Spoiler Alert: It was actually some horrific shit.)
Let's be clear: I'm not saying your campaign will turn otherwise decent human beings into abusers. I am saying it confirms the idea that the feminine is less than, and that's exactly the logic that fuels abusers and bullies. If abusers and bullies can look at your campaign and come away with their sexism confirmed, rather than challenged by your "humor," then you ARE CONFIRMING SEXISM. Abusers and bullies use the excuse of "it's a joke" every single day. It doesn't make it any less abusive, and it doesn't make it any less wrong.
If you aren't familiar with this dynamic, it's Domestic Violence Awareness Domestic Violence Awareness Month AND National Bullying Awareness Month, so now would be a great time to catch up. Not the best time to launch a pro-misogyny, pro-bullying advertising campaign, but a great time to catch up.
And once you're caught up, I sincerely hope you'll consider doing the right thing. End your contemptibly misogynistic campaign, replacing it with one that insults neither masculinity nor femininity. Creativity: Isn't that what you pay your creative team for? You might even make a donation to one of many worthy organizations that help people deal with the horrific real-life effects of misogyny and gender policing: Rape, abuse, bullying, and other forms of emotional and physical violence.
On the day that happens, I will give Dr Pepper-Snapple Group a full salute for having proven that making a profit doesn't have to come at the expense of denigrating humanity.
But for now, since you can only be bothered to write a half-assed boilerplate letter in response to consumer concerns, I can only be bothered to give you a one-finger salute in response to your contemptible campaign.
Sincerely,
Aphra
cc. Shaker Cauldroness and Shaker bellnola
Photo of the Day
Wausau firefighters Jared Thompson, left, and Jamie Giese give artificial respiration to a dog that was rescued from a house fire in Wausau, Wis., Oct. 18, 2011. (Dan Young/Wausau Daily Herald/AP Photo)The dog, recently rescued Labrador retriever Coda, survived, thanks to the quick intervention of Giese, a dog-owner himself, who did not hesitate to cup his hands around Coda's snotty, sooty muzzle to give life-saving mouth-to-snout resuscitation.
