{"id":7153,"date":"2014-03-07T10:30:36","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T16:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/?p=7153"},"modified":"2014-03-07T10:30:36","modified_gmt":"2014-03-07T16:30:36","slug":"guest-post-trending-headless-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2014\/03\/07\/guest-post-trending-headless-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Trending: “Headless Women?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s guest post from\u00a0Christine Gallagher Kearney was originally published here<\/a>.<\/em> Christine Gallagher Kearney is a Public Voices Fellow with\u00a0<\/i>The OpEd Project<\/i><\/a>,\u00a0member of the <\/i>YWCA Metropolitan Chicago Board of Ambassador Council<\/i><\/a>, co-founder of\u00a0<\/i>ChiFems Action Network<\/i><\/a>\u00a0and past president of DePaul University\u2019s Women\u2019s Network. She has published in places like\u00a0<\/i>ForbesWoman<\/i><\/a>,\u00a0<\/i>Women\u2019s eNews<\/i><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/i>Girl w\/Pen!<\/i><\/a>\u00a0(now a part of The Society Pages).<\/i><\/p>\n

Sheryl Sandberg and her Lean In organization are still trending, and while I\u2019m not excited about everything she and her organization are doing for women \u2014 see bell hooks\u2019 critique<\/a> \u2014 the new Lean In Collection with Getty Images, \u201ca library of images devoted to the powerful depiction of women, girls and the people who support them,\u201d<\/a> is heartening, especially in the face of recent female disembodiment in the news media.<\/p>\n

TIME didn\u2019t start the disembodiment, but they did name it. In a rundown of recent visual advertisements depicting \u201cheadless women,\u201d writer Laura Stampler describes and calls the occurrence of headless women a \u201ctrend<\/a>,\u201d reducing women\u2019s bodies to objects for consumption.<\/p>\n

To be sure, \u201cheadless women\u201d in advertising is not new. Take for example a 1990s ad for BodySlimmers that depicts a woman standing provocatively in what looks like a black swimming suit. Her head is not visible in the image<\/a>. Or think back to an advertisement by Axe for shower gel that depicts a woman\u2019s body covered in mud, with \u201cwash me\u201d written with a finger across her stomach, her head is not visible in the image.<\/p>\n

However, announcing a \u201cheadless woman\u201d trend in 2014 is as absurd as it is dangerous. Picture all the female contestants on \u201cThe Bachelor\u201d without heads. Imagine female models on catwalks without heads. Now picture your female coworker without a head, or prominent female leaders \u2014 Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton or Janet Yellen \u2014 without heads.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy cutting out the head you are immediately saying her personality and brains aren\u2019t important in the slightest. We are just interested in her body. It doesn\u2019t matter who she is<\/a>,\u201d said Lauren Rosewarne a professor at The University of Melbourne who writes, researches and comments on sexuality, gender, feminism, the media, pop culture, public policy and politics.<\/p>\n

In effect, choosing to describe this disconcerting development as a \u201ctrend\u201d belies the seriousness of the injustices being perpetrated and further demeans the individuals or groups who are being treated with contempt. Women are reduced to objects for consumption, to be used and thrown away.<\/p>\n

So instead of elevating women with \u201cover 2,500 images of female leadership in contemporary work and life<\/a>,\u201d TIME missed the opportunity to critically confront the issue of \u201cheadless women.\u201d They could have named the growing and disturbing pattern of \u201cheadless women\u201d in advertising an epidemic. Perhaps they were not satisfactorily disturbed.<\/p>\n

I am, because too often advertising and pop culture bleed into real life. Symbolically, beheading a female leader takes her away from her embodied power with finality \u2013 Marie Antoinette<\/a> anyone?<\/p>\n

You need only watch Miss Representation, a documentary film that<\/a> \u201cchallenges the media\u2019s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls, which make it difficult for women to achieve leadership positions and for the average woman to feel powerful herself,\u201d to understand the gravity of the impact of objectification.<\/p>\n

Statistics from the film are vast and telling<\/a>: \u201cIn Nancy Pelosi\u2019s four years as Speaker of the House, she has been on the cover of\u00a0zero national weekly magazines; 53 percent of 13-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies. \u00a0That number increases to 78 percent by age 17; and women hold only five percent of clout positions in telecommunications, entertainment, publishing, and advertising.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just last year, the Women\u2019s Media Center in their Status of Women in the U.S. Media report<\/a> reiterated that, \u201cStory framing and descriptions of women still too often fall into lazy stereotypes, from coverage of the Olympics to the resignation of the director of the CIA over the revelation of an extramarital relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

It could be easy for some to dismiss these statistics in the face of a \u201cheadless women\u201d \u201ctrend\u201d, but the thing about pop culture is that it delivers a \u201ctrend\u201d as something we want to follow or at the very least, gaze at from a distance.<\/p>\n

Stampler, to her credit, does note in her article, \u201cAlthough there is an element of artistic digital dexterity in these images, it is hard to ignore their basic element of objectification. While some [advertisers] could be making a cultural statement, others (with names like \u201cHeadless Hot girl twenty-whatever does X sexy thing\u201d)\u00a0are clearly for aesthetics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertisers make the aesthetic choice to remove women\u2019s heads \u2013 sending the message that women\u2019s heads are not pleasing or even wanted. Women should never be \u201cclearly for aesthetics\u201d from a cultural perspective.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Stampler\u2019s take on \u201cheadless women\u201d invites a passive response to the ongoing and pervasive problem of objectifying women\u2019s bodies in advertising and pop culture. Claiming that advertisers are making a cultural statement with \u201cheadless women\u201d is disingenuous. At best, this is careless journalism, at worst naming \u201cheadless women\u201d a \u201ctrend\u201d signals complacency with a culture that supports the objectification of women.<\/p>\n

An article that I wish would have disappeared quietly into the night instead set the stage for more female disembodiment, this time the perpetrators were the news outlets themselves.<\/p>\n

Headless women leapt from the advertising pages to the front cover of TIME, where Hillary Clinton appeared disembodied on their cover\u2014a single high heeled foot and suit pant-covered-leg are visible<\/a>. Had the copy not contained Clinton\u2019s name, you would never have known who it was supposed to be.<\/p>\n

Since the issue\u2019s publication, there have been various forms of critique from feminist<\/a> writers<\/a>, but after TIME ran their cover, the New York Times Magazine turned Clinton\u2019s head into a planet<\/a>, floating in outer space on the front cover of their Sunday weekly.<\/p>\n

I understand that not all trends are positive for women, but many objectifying trends become popular and without critique, like in TIME\u2019s case, they perpetuate female disembodiment. I don\u2019t want to live in a world where \u201cheadless women\u201d is a trend, let alone a popular one. What should be trending is how incredible women are succeeding every day and making great strides against tremendous odds.<\/p>\n

Depictions of women that are real and complete are needed fully embodied, especially as we move into the next election cycle in which a major contender for the presidency of the United States may be a woman; we watch women win medals at the Olympics; and experience the work of everyday women doing extraordinary things\u2014think Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, who was incidentally shot in the head for her activism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2014, I hope that we change our consumption habits to fully embody women. Together, LeanIn.org and Getty Images are taking a positive, fully embodied, first step.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s guest post from\u00a0Christine Gallagher Kearney was originally published here. Christine Gallagher Kearney is a Public Voices Fellow with\u00a0The OpEd Project,\u00a0member of the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago Board of Ambassador Council, co-founder of\u00a0ChiFems Action Network\u00a0and past president of DePaul University\u2019s Women\u2019s Network. She has published in places like\u00a0ForbesWoman,\u00a0Women\u2019s eNews\u00a0and\u00a0Girl w\/Pen!\u00a0(now a part of The Society Pages). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1923,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21121],"tags":[245,55,129,868,1528],"class_list":["post-7153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-ink","tag-feminism","tag-gender","tag-media","tag-power","tag-sexism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1923"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7154,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7153\/revisions\/7154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}