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Recently at Feministing, Maya Dusenbery wrote about an ad from Germany’s International Human Rights campaign that, as she put it, is “a lesson in how not to advocate for women’s rights.”

As Dusenbery writes,

It seems the folks who created this ad not only have a hard time seeing agency but actually went out of their way to erase it as thoroughly as possible and then stomp on it some more. And then equated women who wear the burqa with bags of trash. Literally.

I completely agree, and would like to add some broader context.  This is not at all surprising, given the recent of attempts in the West to obscure the agency of Muslim women in juxtaposition to their white, Western saviors. One of the more blatant examples of this was the discourse of the United States government that it was going to war in Afghanistan in part to save Afghan women from the Taliban. Laura Shepherd argued in an excellent 2006 article in The International Feminist Journal of Politics (which I’vecited before) that the US discursively constructed Afghan women as the “Helpless Victim” that was submissive and lacking agency, under the oppressive control of the “Irrational Barbarian.” This discourse, was used, of course, to posit the United States (specifically, its military) as the saviors who could rectify the situation for these women. Much as the agency of the women in the German PSA was erased, this narrative denied the agency of Afghan women, who, as Shepherd writes, are afforded “only pity and a certain voyeuristic attraction” (p. 20).

Of course, this specific discourse hasn’t ended. As this TIME Magazine cover from last year shows, it continues to serve as a means of justifying the US occupation of Afghanistan.

This discourse assumes, obviously, that the US presence in Afghanistan is a clear benefit for women in the country, a position at least some women’s organizations in Afghanistan contest. Samhita Mukhopadhyay at Feministing had an excellent post on this issue last summer.

I should also mention France’s recently-instituted ban on the full-faced veil, which Dusenbery argues – citing Jos Truitt – is a similar erasure of agency. I agree with her, and again would add that this fits in with this general (Orientalist) discourse about Muslim women, their uncivilized oppressors, and their White saviors.

John McMahon is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at the City University of New York Graduate Center, where he also participates in the Women’s Studies Certificate Program.  He is interested in post-structuralism, issues relating to men and feminism, gendered practices in international relations, gender and political theory, and questions of American state identity.  John blogs at Facile Gestures, where this post originally appeared.

See also our post in which we criticize a set of public service ads that compared women the genital cutting to blow up sex dolls.

In the U.S., Spam is usually considered a food for poor people; people make fun of it as an inexplicable meat. In contrast, Spam is very popular in South Korea. Spam was introduced to Korea during the Korean War (1950-1953) and today it is a popular food item loved by all walks of life. Growing up in Korea, I distinctly remember that it was “cool” to bring a slice of Spam in a lunch box when I was kids. Even today whenever I go home, my friends take me to eat a spicy Spam stew; it’s a special occasion.

Not at all considered a food for the poor or the “trashy,” as it commonly is in the U.S., in Korea Spam is a luxury item. Spam can be a great gift for your boss or your business clients. The photo below shows Spam for sale at a luxury hotel. The set on the top shelf cost about $60 and the set on the second sells for about $42.

Perceptions of Spam, then, are cultural. From an American perspective, the popularity and prestige of Spam in Korea may seem weird. But from a Korean perspective, it is perfectly sensible… and with boiled rice and kim-chi, totally delicious.

Sangyoub Park is an assistant professor of sociology at Washburn University, where he teaches Social Demography, Generations in the U.S. and Sociology of East Asia. His research interests include social capital, demographic trends, and post-Generation Y.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

In 1991 writer and cultural critic Katha Pollitt coined the phrase “The Smurfette Principle” to draw attention to the tendency for movies, TV shows, and other cultural products to include one, and just one female (source). For the unfamiliar, The Smurfs was a children’s television show, airing from 1981 to 1989, populated by a whole world of little blue men and one (sexy) blue woman:

(source)

In her latest in the series Tropes vs. Women, Feminist Frequency’s Anita Sarkeesian applies The Smurfette Principle to today’s movies and shows.  How far have we come?

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For more tropes, see Sarkeesian on The Manic Pixie DreamGirl and Women in Refrigerators.

Transcript after the jump:

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A quick Google image search suggests that Prince William and the to-be Princess Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton conform to Western culture’s expectation that a man be sufficiently taller than his woman.  Not so for Prince Charles and Princess Diana.  In light of today’s royal nuptials, I thought I’d re-post this fav of mine. Originally cross-posted at Jezebel.

In the U.S. and the U.K., one of the most unbreakable rules of mating involves height. He must be taller than her, preferably significantly taller. Men and women often pick one another in such a way that any given couple follows this rule even if, given random assortment, some couples would involve women who the same height or taller than their male partners.

Rumor has it, though I can’t prove it, that Hollywood routinely puts leading men in platform boots or on stools so that they appear appropriately tall relative to their leading ladies.

Philip Cohen, however, alerted me to a case that can be nicely shown: Prince Charles and Princess Diana.  As these photographs show, Charles was about the same height as Diana, perhaps even shorter.

(Daily Mail)

When Charles and Diana were posed together formally, however, they were typically arranged so as to suggest that he was significantly taller than her, or at least to disguise the fact that he was not.

A photo from their engagement announcement with Charles on a step behind her:

(BBC)

And more:

(Family Inequality)

This effort to make Charles appear taller is a social commitment to the idea that men are taller and women shorter. When our own bodies, and our chosen mates, don’t follow this rule, sometimes we’ll go to great lengths to preserve the illusion.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

What is the fiscal relationship between the Royal Family of the United Kingdom and its taxpayers?  I have no idea.

Accordingly, I have no idea as to the accuracy of this 5-minute summary, made by CGP Grey (via), but it was entertaining and, I imagine, contains a least a kernel of truth:

U.K. readers, what say you?  (Transcript after the jump.)

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Last year I posted about a new ad campaign for Pretzel Crisps. The ads’ use of the phrase “you can never be too thin” inspired one man to alter one ad posted in NYC, including taping up images of news stories about individuals who have died of eating disorders. After the story got some attention, Snack Factory, the company that makes Pretzel Crisps, eventually apologized and said they were taking the ads down.

A victory, right? Except it seems like Snack Factory didn’t quite get the message. They replaced that ad with one that said “tastes as good as skinny feels.”

Dmitriy T.M. let us know that they then also released this ad, which similarly seemed to miss (or not care about) what the concerns were about the original:

So…they reinforced the message about thinness, and throw in an extra insult on top of it. Classy.

Via Jezebel.

I invite you to spend seven minutes listening to Baratunde Thurston explaining what, exactly, is wrong with the fact that Barack Obama was hounded into releasing his long form birth certificate.  He does a wonderful job of historicizing the requirement that Obama prove that he is an American (to a man such as Donald Trump), at the same time that he explains why this questioning of Obama’s citizenship is deeply hurtful to all Black Americans and their allies.

Via BoingBoing.  Transcript after the jump (via Racialicious).

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Nate Silver, at Five Thirty Eight, has a new post up about the increasing support for same-sex marriage in the U.S. In the past few months, four polls Silver deems credible have found, for the first time, more than half of Americans supporting legalizing same-sex marriage. Here’s a graph Silver created showing the results of polls on the topic over time (an update of his earlier graph):

Of course, as Silver points out, results of public opinion polls don’t necessarily translate into immediate changes in politicians’ positions. Support for same-sex marriage is surely unevenly distributed, meaning some politicians will still find opposition to it to be a winning electoral strategy in their districts. Or they may count on the fact that many voters may support same-sex marriage but not view a candidate’s position on this issue as a deal-breaker. And, of course, sometimes politicians take a position and stick to it regardless of opinion polls.

That said, as with public opinion about gays and lesbians serving in the military, the trend line is clear, and it seems likely that fewer politicians will see opposition to same-sex marriage as a sure-fire winning strategy, as many have in the past.