(no subject)
Jul. 25th, 2005 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ishyface"Feminism is extremely restrictive. You can't call a woman a bitch, you can't call her this, you can't call her that. But that's what life's really like. Yet she can do whatever she wants. It's out of balance and that's why young people haven't embraced feminism, because it's out of balance."
Gosh, Mr. Charney, be a little bit more of a blustering fuckhead please. ("She can do whatever she wants"? Dude, try growing a uterus and walking down a street at night, see what happens- and if you're blamed for it afterward.)
That's why I dislike American Apparel. They think they're very liberal and cutting edge, but they still use the same sexist bullshit to sell their products, trumpeting about sexual freedom when in reality their owner sexually harasses women in the workplace.
Oh, and claims that "women initiate most domestic violence."
And decorates the stores with old issues of Penthouse.
Not to mention the fact that he won't let his workers unionize.
I'm all for getting rid of sweatshop labour, but what people always forget is that different methods of exploitation are entwined. Using the tired old "sex sells" rhetoric and calling sexual enfranchisement sexual liberation is not revolutionary. It's the same stunt that corporations have been pulling for years.
Gosh, Mr. Charney, be a little bit more of a blustering fuckhead please. ("She can do whatever she wants"? Dude, try growing a uterus and walking down a street at night, see what happens- and if you're blamed for it afterward.)
That's why I dislike American Apparel. They think they're very liberal and cutting edge, but they still use the same sexist bullshit to sell their products, trumpeting about sexual freedom when in reality their owner sexually harasses women in the workplace.
Oh, and claims that "women initiate most domestic violence."
And decorates the stores with old issues of Penthouse.
Not to mention the fact that he won't let his workers unionize.
I'm all for getting rid of sweatshop labour, but what people always forget is that different methods of exploitation are entwined. Using the tired old "sex sells" rhetoric and calling sexual enfranchisement sexual liberation is not revolutionary. It's the same stunt that corporations have been pulling for years.
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no subject
on 2005-07-26 01:59 am (UTC)Ewan McGregor loves you.
on 2005-07-26 02:36 am (UTC)On the episode of QaF that's on right now they played a Bright Eyes song and I lost all sensation in my upper body for a minute or two. I'm such a dork.
Score!
on 2005-07-26 08:42 pm (UTC)Yay for Cyndi Lauper not dieing! ^_^
Re: Score!
on 2005-07-26 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-07-26 03:20 am (UTC)Then again, no one seems to want to bother giving Hugh Hefner the beating he deserves, either, and he's a much more prolific asshole.
no subject
on 2005-07-26 04:14 pm (UTC)= POWER.
People in our time don't fuck with that too quick. Don't shake the boat, you know?
*Sigh.* How I wish Audre Lorde was around. We need more people like her.
no subject
on 2005-07-26 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-07-26 02:34 pm (UTC)Where do you find all these articles, anyway, Ellen?
no subject
on 2005-07-26 03:54 pm (UTC)This one I found through the Bitch website. Their merch is produced by American Apparel, which is weird since they're a feminist magazine, so there's a bit of a flamewar going on there- some people are threatening to boycott.
no subject
on 2005-07-26 04:13 pm (UTC)You simply cannot say you are standing up for the rights of some oppressed while continuing to perpetuate the same old lies about sex, sexuality, and sexism, which oppresses other people as well.
Besides that, they have a point that this sort of model probably won't work for larger companies. Socialism on a large scale doesn't work - unless you have the money to make it work.
Additionally, those sweat shops are sometimes the only way some of those workers survive and are able to feed their family's. They live in areas of the world where, unbelievable as it seems, a sweat shop is the best way to make enough money to feed themselves. And it produces money for the local economy, which might otherwise have nothing. I don't advocate for abusing or enslaving people, but I'm just saying, it's not as simple as Westerners would often like to believe. And, repeating the mantra of "those poor sweatshop workers" only removes the workers from being people and instead places them in the position of being little more than infants, victims who must be taken care of by the Great Western Nations who are Wiser and More Understanding.
It's a clever way for Westerners to justify how they continue to screw around and screw over other nations, dictating policy and demands, instead of trying to work with the people of other nations and make constructive contributions that will benefit the societies of these nations, rather than continue to line the pockets of the West and make us feel good, like we did something.
The dude also has a point about patriarchal culture creating the women as victim thing. It's the same idea that goes into making victims of sweatshop workers. If you can make them a victim, you infantilize them and make them dependent on your protection. You see how this clearly works in patriarchy, I'm sure. :)
However, I don't see where the dude's trying to undo the "victimization of women" by whining and bitching about how abused the poor mens are. Oh cry me the Ganges pal.
no subject
on 2005-07-26 04:49 pm (UTC)And if you have the money to make it work it's more beneficial for you to be a capitalist. Vicious fucking cycle.
The dude also has a point about patriarchal culture creating the women as victim thing. It's the same idea that goes into making victims of sweatshop workers. If you can make them a victim, you infantilize them and make them dependent on your protection. You see how this clearly works in patriarchy, I'm sure. :)
Yeah, I agree, and I do see a lot of that kind of thing happening with the treatment of sweatshop workers- even when we pay attention to them and all the things that are wrong with their situation we have this kind of "we've got to save the nobles savages!" kind of mindset. Like we need to ride in on a white horse and save everything because they can't save themselves.
I believe in interdependence, but our notion of what that is is still very much entwined with colonialism and the idea that we need to improve other people and their ways of life, rather than letting them lead the way for their own revolutions.
By the way, have you seen this? It's amazing.