Backfire

By now, it's been well and truly proven that the Internet allows advertisers to get away with marketing campaigns that would never get past TV network censors. But sometimes even an ad destined for social media can crash and burn.

Like this Australian attempt did earlier this week.

Reports yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald:

The short film, made as part of the online "Clever Film Comp" organised by Toyota in conjunction with advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, shows a father and a young male having an innuendo-laden conversation about a date with the young daughter.

The ad is for the Toyota Yaris, a small car sold mainly to young female buyers.

<SNIP>

One of the conditions listed in the competition's rules is that videos submitted for the $7000 first prize must "not be immoral".

After a tally of viewer votes pushed the ad into the top ranking, the competition’s Facebook page filled with remarks describing the winning film as juvenile, offensive, and promoting incest.

"I have written and lodged a formal complaint with Toyota's Australian head office regarding this specific competition entry/winner," one Facebook entry says. "I would encourage those who feel the same to also write formal complaints to Toyota. This is 2009! Women should not have to be dealing with this vulgar objectification."

<SNIP>

Toyota spokesman Mike Breen said he could not say how many complaints the car maker had received about the video, but the company was sorry if it had caused offence.

Of course, all of this guarantees the ad goes viral.

So why am I posting it?

Because it goes to show that it's not just sex that sells. Sexism does too. Still.

You'll find the competing entries here.

Sexual healing

Where does Big Pharma come up with these ideas anyway?

Restless vagina syndrome? For serious?

It’s not your fault, ladies (and certainly not your partner’s), that you don’t orgasm every time you have intercourse, or that you lack the libido of a 17-year-old boy. You have a disease: female sexual dysfunction (FSD), and the pharmaceutical industry wants to help.

You are among the "43 percent of American women [who] experience some degree of impaired sexual function," according to a Journal of the American Medical Association article. The FDA’s evolving definition of FSD includes decreased desire or arousal, sexual pain and orgasm difficulties -- but only if the woman feels "personal distress" about it.

So, convincing women to feel distress is a key component of the drug company strategy to market a multi-billion-dollar pill that will cure billions of women of what may not ail them.

By promoting the belief that "normal" women have explosive sex all the time, BigPharma helped launch the disease. However, the FDA has yet to approve a treatment for women who fall short. Until then, they could try the Orgasmatron: a dial-a-delight spinal implant that rarely works -- and risks infection and paralysis. Or, for $60/month, pop LexaFem pills -- containing (how-could-it-not-work) "horny goat weed extract" in order to "feel like a real woman today." Its website promises, "You won’t ever feel unhappy again with LexaFem in your arsenal."

You know, I wish they would stick to things like curing cancer or fighting malaria or something useful.

As for coming and going, there's no problem a little loving attention and some batteries won't fix.

(The video may be NSFW for some of you.)

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Just found this video. I don't know why but these dancing ferrets made me want to update this post.

Stork raving mad

Via The Daily Dish, Newsweek's fascinating -- and frightening -- timeline/slideshow showing the evolution of contraception. Must be seen to be believed how women were persecuted and tortured through the ages, just for not wanting to be pregnant again and again.

H/t @thejoshuablog on Twitter who blogs here.

Barely scary

Further to this, this and Wednesday's treeware column, which I didn't get around to blogging, this cartoon by Andy Marlette which says it all.

And for good measure, a snip from Wednesday's treeware musings:

Mr. and Mississauga, this weekend, when your daughter spurns the Hermione sweater vest for the prostitot getup, be ready to put up a fight.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I loved to smear lipstick on my face and wear my mother's cocktail dresses. You can be sure I wanted to go out looking like jail bait. But no way would I have gotten past the foyer.

Which is why I got nostalgic at last week's Mad Men when Sally and Bobby dressed as a gypsy and a hobo.

One Halloween, my dark-haired sister, Irene, was outfitted – all from stuff we had in the house – like a gypsy, while I had dirty smears on my face as a hobo.

I was insanely jealous of her eye makeup.

Now, of course, homemade costumes just won't do. At least not from what I can see every year at this time: frazzled parents lining up to get into It's My Party on the Danforth, where all the Riverdalers go for their Halloween supplies.

It's also where big girls can go for their outfits, invariably skimpy sexed-up versions of nurses or sorceresses.

But, no need to look for parking. Just Google "Halloween costumes sexy" – and you'll find all you need to look as if you're working in the kinky division of your local brothel.

Even in plus sizes.

If you hit the club district this Saturday night, you'll see sexy French maids, sexy firefighters, sexy everything.

As for the guys, they may be costumed, or not.

Consider how the men dress up: more often than not as zombies or vampires, gangsters or super- heroes, athletes or cops.

Boys and men invariably opt for personas that represent power or strength, for good or bad. I can't count the number of Freddy Kruegers that continue to show up at my door on Halloween.

So what is it about the female sex that drives them to strut their stuff in thigh-high fishnets at least once a year?

That's a heck of a lot scarier than some of the ghosts, monsters and other fright sights back in the day. Check out these vintage photos for the homemade hauntings I can recall.

Happy Halloween.

Via Sociological Images.

Someday my prince will come

From the always awesome Sociological Images:

Which gives me an excuse to post this little nugget from The Nation which I have been saving for just this sort of occasion. It's by Barbara Ehrenreich, one of my idols.

Disney likes to think of the Princesses as role models, but what a sorry bunch of wusses they are. Typically, they spend much of their time in captivity or a coma, waking up only when a Prince comes along and kisses them. The most striking exception is Mulan, who dresses as a boy to fight in the army, but--like the other Princess of color, Pocahontas--she lacks full Princess status and does not warrant a line of tiaras and gowns. Otherwise the Princesses have no ambitions and no marketable skills, although both Snow White and Cinderella are good at housecleaning.

And what could they aspire to, beyond landing a Prince? In Princessland, the only career ladder leads from baby-faced adolescence to a position as an evil enchantress, stepmother or witch. Snow White's wicked stepmother is consumed with envy for her stepdaughter's beauty; the sea witch Ursula covets Ariel's lovely voice; Cinderella's stepmother exploits the girl's cheap, uncomplaining, labor. No need for complicated witch-hunting techniques--pin-prickings and dunkings--in Princessland. All you have to look for is wrinkles.

<SNIP>

Seen from the witchy end of the female life cycle, the Princesses exert their pull through a dark and undeniable eroticism. They're sexy little wenches, for one thing.

<SNIP>

It may be old-fashioned to say so, but sex--and especially some middle-aged man's twisted version thereof--doesn't belong in the pre-K playroom. Children are going to discover it soon enough, but they're got to do so on their own.

There's a reason, after all, why we're generally more disgusted by sexual abusers than adults who inflict mere violence on children: we sense that sexual abuse more deeply messes with a child's mind. One's sexual inclinations--straightforward or kinky, active or passive, heterosexual or homosexual--should be free to develop without adult intervention or manipulation. Hence our harshness toward the kind of sexual predators who leer at kids and offer candy. But Disney, which also owns ABC, Lifetime, ESPN, A&E and Miramax, is rewarded with $4 billion a year for marketing the masochistic Princess cult and its endlessly proliferating paraphernalia.

Let's face it, no parent can stand up against this alone. Try to ban the Princesses from your home, and you might as well turn yourself in to Child Protective Services before the little girls get on their Princess cell phones. No, the only way to topple royalty is through a mass uprising of the long-suffering serfs. Assemble with your neighbors and make a holiday bonfire out of all that plastic and tulle! March on Disney World with pitchforks held high! 

Which reminds me. It's the Night of the Living Mini Disney Princesses this weekend.

PS: Coming soon: Disney's The Princess and the Frog ...

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: My Tweep @evinmaria reminds me of this wry but instructive exhibit by Vancouver artist Dina Goldstein. I have blogged about this before but it is very relevant here!

Thus spake the patriarchs

This makes me so angry I am spitting at my screen.

VATICAN CITY — African cardinals denounced the "cultural imperialism" of wealthy 
countries in their aid, trade and health care policies for Africa, saying Wednesday that the West's promotion of abortion rights and condoms is destroying the continent's moral fabric.

Because rape all over the continent is part of the ''moral fabric?''

And forget ''cultural imperialism.'' What about Catholic imperialism?

African prelates attending the three-week meeting on the role of the Catholic Church in Africa said their countries needed economic development partnerships that are based on trust and fairness, not ones that exploit Africa's natural resources and put conditions on aid.

Agreed on the exploitation part, but, if the conditions they reject include maternal health care and contraceptives, well, these guys are just emissaries from Misogynist Central in the Vatican.

"We want to be helped, but helped in the name of truth, with respect of what we are and what we want for ourselves," Cardinal Theodore-Adrien Sarr of Dakar, Senegal, told a news conference.

He and Cardinal Wilfred Fox Napier of Durban, South Africa, denounced "hidden" agendas of international aid groups and countries that promote abortion rights and condoms to fight HIV, saying the West was trying to impose its views on Africa.

Their arguments have been echoed during the synod, with repeated criticisms of institutions  that promote "reproductive health care" for women. The Vatican has warned that such programs — often supported by the United Nations — are really just a cover for promoting access to abortions and birth control.

The Vatican opposes abortion and artificial contraception. It has come under heavy criticism for its opposition to condoms as a way of fighting HIV, particularly in hard-hit Africa.

"There are certain cultural norms that are inherent in Africa," Napier said. "One of them is that sexual activity is for bringing babies into the world. It's not so much for enjoyment."

Yeah, well, rape isn't particularly enjoyable.

And neither is giving birth to HIV-positive babies -- and then dying and leaving them orphaned.

But this is what God wants, right?

SHAMELESS PLUG: I am a supporter of this Canadian Christian-mission run orphanage in Uganda.

Yeah, I did say Christian. Surprise, surprise.

The photo (above right) is of two of its wards, Fatuma and Frank.

Please consider a donation.

Thank you.

Where would Jesus invest?

Verily I bloggeth, today's treeware column pretty much speaks for itself. So here it is, with linky freshness.

Lo, last week, when news of the Conservative Bible Project broke on Twitter, the Tweeple rang out with sarcasm.

Progressives fired off fake verses one might find rewritten by the "family values'' fundamentalists behind Conservapedia, the so-called "trustworthy'' online information source for all things right-wing.

Verily I say unto thee, these U.S. conservatives, led by Andy Schlafly, begat by Phyllis Schlafly, best known for stopping the equal rights for women amendment, consider modern translations of the Bible to contain too much "liberal bias.''

For example, the "economic parables'' aren't suffused with sufficient – I kiddeth thee not – "full free-market meaning.''

To take that to its logical anti- socialist conclusion, when Jesus fed those two little fishes and five loaves of bread to the multitude, he should have charged the going market rate.

No wonder the lefty-libs on Twitter launched their snark attacks.

"Let my people GOP!''

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence I can see Russia."*

"Physician, heal thyself. And your patients without insurance should heal themselves, too."

"Suffer the little `preborn' children to come unto me, and forbid them not dominion of women's bodies."

Now, you'd think that, considering all the fundamentalist keening and wailing over, as many of them deem it, the abortion "holocaust,'' the Bible has lots to say about the termination of pregnancy.

But it doth not, not according to some serious theological scholars.

In fact, according to the Washington-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which has many papers published on its website, one of the few places it is mentioned is Exodus 21:22-25 – and even there, the pregnant woman is considered to have "greater moral and religious worth than the fetus.''

Yes, surprisingly, there are indeed people of faith who believe that abortion is a choice "a woman must make for herself in keeping with her faith, beliefs, conscience, and her own personal situation."

Yet, if you saw those "Life Chain'' demonstrators on street corners all over town two Sundays  ago, with signs equating abortion to murder, you would think that religious groups have no regard at all for women's lives, health, independence or, if you believe in that sort of stuff, souls.

That despite how Genesis 2:7 states: "Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Which corresponds with Canada's legal definition of personhood, which states, in much less florid language, that life begins after birth.

The thing about so many of these anti-choicers is, while they profess to be pro-life, most are doing little or nothing to ensure that no child is born unwanted, or that women get the support they need if they do go to term.

Such as state-funded daycare.

Instead, it's about taking women back to – conservative – Bible times. How else to explain why they also advocate abstinence-only sex education? Why not appeal to their church leaders to drop their prohibitions against contraception?

In fact, many of these groups insist that, if a woman has sex, she should face the consequences – as if having a baby as punishment is a good reason to be a mother.

As for the woman, she doesn't matter.

According to numbers released Tuesday by the Guttmacher Institute, a world-renowned research and policy institute on reproductive health, every year, illegal abortions result in 70,000 deaths, with an additional five million women getting treatment for complications resulting from unsafe abortions.

Would Jesus want that?

Oh yes, say the Conservative Bible Project backers who insist that the scriptures be rewritten to kill the "pervasive and hurtful myth that Jesus would be a political liberal today.''

God help America.

Nothing more to add really except that the response has been awesome, and that the tweet about seeing Russia marked with an *asterisk* is not, like the others reprinted here, one I wrote but came from @sinfonian who blogs here.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: This is what they call blogrolling. :-)

Who wants to play with who wants to be a millionaire?

Via BuzzFeed, this three-month old video which is suddenly climbing the charts.

All I can say is, ewwww.

Imagine if were Regis with a gorgeous woman contestant.

Ewwww.

Yes Dear, tonight. I have a headache

Here's some bedtime reading for you: Why Women Have Sex -- Understanding Sexual Motivations from Adventure to Revenge (And Everything in Between).

Do women have sex simply to reproduce or display their affection? When University of Texas at Austin clinical psychologist Cindy M. Meston and evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss joined forces to investigate the underlying sexual motivations of women, what they found astonished them.

Through the voices of real women, Meston and Buss reveal the motivations that guide

women’s sexual decisions and explain the deep-seated psychology and biology that often unwittingly drive women’s desires—sometimes in pursuit of health or pleasure, or sometimes for darker, disturbing reasons that a woman may not fully recognize. Drawing on more than a thousand intensive interviews conducted solely for the book, as well as their pioneering research on physiological response and evolutionary emotions, Why Women Have Sex uncovers an amazingly complex and nuanced portrait of female sexuality.

Seems that the co-authors uncovered 237 reasons for women wanting to get under the covers.

237!

And they involve a lot more than the usual, typical, cliches. A lot lot more.

I don't have  my hands on the book ... yet ... but I did read this fun piece by Tanya Gold for The Guardian. It's long, but totally worth your time. Here's an excerpt:

Ever had sex out of pity and wondered why? "Women," say Meston and Buss, "for the most part, are the ones who give soup to the sick, cookies to the elderly and . . . sex to the forlorn." "Tired, but he wanted it," says one female. Pause for more amazing detail: fat people are more likely to stay in a relationship because no one else wants them.

Women also mate to get the things they think they want – drugs, handbags, jobs, drugs. "The degree to which economics plays out in sexual motivations," Buss says, "surprised me. Not just prostitution. Sex economics plays out even in regular relationships. Women have sex so that the guy would mow the lawn or take out the garbage. You exchange sex for dinner." He quotes some students from the University of Michigan. It is an affluent university, but 9% of students said they had "initiated an attempt to trade sex for some tangible benefit".

Medicinal sex

Then there is sex to feel better. Women use sex to cure their migraines. This is explained by the release of endormorphins during sex – they are a pain reliever. Sex can even help relieve period pains. (Why are periods called periods? Please, someone tell me. Write in.)

The only place -- based on Gold's review, anyway -- where I take exception to the book is where the co-authors discuss assault.

Women also have sex because they are raped, coerced ...

That's not sex. That's violence. That's attacking. That's a power grab.

Literally.

Still, from what I can tell, this book looks like must-reading ... for men.

Now, how many reasons do you suppose these researchers would find if she surveyed men on why they had sex?

You know I had to ask.

P.S. The comments on the Guardian piece are hysterical.

Into the wilderness

Well. Today's treeware column, which kind of picks up on themes I blogged yesterday, sure got the comments section jumping. The mods closed it at 95.

So, without further ado, here it is, with linky freshness, and one clarification:

Oh, let's not kid ourselves.

The birds of `pray' who will be targeting women's clinics in Canadian cities for the next 40 days really don't care about saving lives.

If they did, they wouldn't be so much about intimidating the desperate women and girls who are seeking abortions.

That's because, no matter how much they will attempt to cloak their vigils outside two Toronto clinics with solemn vows to "never stop defending life," their true agenda is unveiled by their lack of support for babies once they're born, their often impoverished mothers and the kind of sex education and contraception accessibility that would avoid abortion in the first place.

Nowhere on 40DaysForLife.com is there any discussion of any of these matters.

That's why it's easy to assume that what the anti-choice movement is really about is exactly that: no choice for women. No choice when it comes to their reproductive rights, no choice when it comes to being free to pursue independent lives, no choice to have careers, no choice at all.

All across North America, where the nutbar mobs south of the border are battling public maternal health care for women, and here in Canada, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper's caucus, rife with members of the Christian right, is repeatedly supporting bills that would curtail reproductive rights, the pro-forced pregnancy cause appears to be gaining ground.

Indeed, a new study in a forthcoming issue of the journal Reproductive Health suggests a correlation between those U.S. states where there is the most thumping of the Good Book and higher teen pregnancy rates.

There are states – most recently Florida – where there are bills to ban contraception. Some pharmacists and doctors, both here and in the U.S., are refusing to provide the pill to patients, even married adult women.

We interrupt this column for a clarification:

The proposal in Florida is for a state constitutional amendment that critics assert would result in criminalization of the Pill. It wouldn't be the first time there have been legislative moves to ban some contraceptives, including the pill. (Via Dammit Janet, a just released self-congratulatory round-up of legislative victories by the Christian forced-maternity crowd.)

And now, back to our regularly-scheduled columnizing:

There are reports in the blogosphere that Harper will replace Status of Women minister Helena Guergis – who hasn't done much for women, but that's another column – with the anti-choice Cheryl Gallant, who has fought against gay rights and even parental leave.

It just gets worse.

Last weekend, a prominent American anti-choice activist made a speech at the "Value Voters Summit" where she proposed that abortions be performed "in the public square."

This is the true backlash against feminism, whose second wave became a tsunami after the pill became widely available in the late 1960s.

It's all about keeping women down to those Biblical depths where they are little more than breeding stock, born to serve their masters.

What cracks me up is how often they attack the most backward and sexist Islamic countries for doing the exact same thing.

Last year, Alberta political scientist Michael Wagner, a favourite of anti-feminist groups such as REAL Women and Equipping Christians for the Public Square, authored a book about the Christian right.

He opens Standing on Guard for Thee: The Past, Present and Future of Canada's Christian Right with a definition of what the movement stands for: "A collection of people, organizations and publications which, because of their conservative Christian principles, are determined to oppose the effects of the Sexual Revolution."

That just about sums it up: shaming and harassing women back to the bedroom, baby's room and behind her man.

How far, far, far away is that from former prime minister Pierre Trudeau's declaration 40 years ago that, "There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation."

No wonder Harper boasted two weeks ago, in a closed-door meeting of the party faithful, that he killed the mechanisms for women to protect their constitutional rights.

No wonder those 40 Days for Life vigilantes feel that their prayer days are about to hit a payload.

Like I said. A lot of comment, many from some of our regular guests right here on Broadsides. One comment I did want to post here however. It's from my friend Marshall, who wrote this on my Facebook page:

Thank you for standing up for this important issue in such a public way. I can only imagine what your Inbox currently looks like. And you're right - it's quite unbelievable that we're still having this debate.

About 15 minutes ago I passed a bunch of these.. people... outside the Cabbagetown Women's Clinic with their placards and giant photos of fetuses - right outside a housing building where many children were walking past on their way home from school. I guess that it's ok for them to irreparably scar these children with their images in their zealousness to "protect" their rights. Such single-mindedness is both maddening and upsetting.

Don't stop. There are many, many of us behind you.

For that, I am grateful.

But I worry about a Conservative majority government.