A short-short lesson in sexism

[trinityvixen]

Newsweek took a ton of flak for putting this picture on their cover the other week. The haters claim this move was sexist because it reduces Palin to a pretty face instead of a credible political force.

Well, PS, Palin is just a pretty face on an empty (but lovingly be-coifed) head. She put this image out there to use her sexual attractiveness as the one-and-only lure she actually has. Because every time she opens her mouth, people remember why they don't want her in charge of the local Denny's, to say nothing of the country. The best explanation for why this picture being attached to an article that explains exactly that:

The problem with crying “sexism” about Newsweek’s use of this picture is that it’s photo she took for calculated appeal being used to show her calculated political appeal.

Bingo. This picture? Was all about appealing to organs below the belt so as to distract those above the neck. Instead of attaching it to an article that went "Wow, isn't she brilliant," Newsweek pointed out that, no, actually, the pretty package is empty. This is the perfect shot to portray that.

Anyway, regardless, Newsweek felt compelled to prove that they're equal opportunity. So after dutifully printing out the responses to their cover, they cheerfully proved one angry letter-writer wrong by throwing her quote over this picture of Barack Obama. There, now everyone's hot political leader has had his/her sexy action shot in Newsweek and the conservatives who didn't think sexism existed before Sarah Palin became John McCain's running mate can shut the F up.

(I read the comments on the Palin cover with gritted teeth because People. Do. Not. Get. It. When I turned the page to find the picture of Obama, I snorted out loud. On the street. Drawing more than a few looks. Which is even more awkward given that I was looking at a picture of the President wet and shirtless.)

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

See, I have to disagree with you on this one, as much as I hate being on the same side of anything as Sarah Palin. I'm sure she would have called sexism regardless of the image because the article was negative--it's her MO. Nor do I disagree that she's an empty package who is trying to distract with her looks. But in the same way that a broken clock is right twice a day...she's got a point.

There are a couple of problems with this. One - the photo was taken for Runners World, in which context showing leg is one hundred percent appropriate. And I think it's rather telling that people's reaction to her wearing sportswear is "the evil woman using her sexual wiles." If you show a male runner in shorts, that is not the reaction you get. Seriously, this is not a bikini photo shoot. I just don't buy that she took this image because she wanted to use her wiles.

Two - if it was a male politician they never would have hunted up a (mildly) provocative photo. They'd have pictured him in a suit. But since it's a woman, they find the sexiest photo they can. Why? Female skin sells magazines. ...which is inherently sexist right there. A male politician's face sells magazines; a female politician's legs do.

Three - Newsweek didn't clear the rights for this. Runners World had exclusive rights to this image for a year after their issue's publication. Now I don't know who fucked up here--Newsweek or the photographer, but I'm inclined to think Newsweek should pay attention to this or risk stepping in it a lot--but the photographer did not have the rights to sell the image to Newsweek.

So Newsweek did fuck up here. And saying "look! look! we can show men provocatively too!" is entirely beside the point. The fact is they don't, as a default, show male politician's provocatively and they did make a deliberate effort to show a female politician so. After the fact equal treatment does not change underlying sexism.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The real question of sexism comes down to who represented her sexually in the first place. I can see all your points and be persuaded by them, but I have to consider this in the context of her entire national public career. Newsweek didn't pick this photo in a vacuum, though they might have picked one that, out of context, is the worst of its kind.

Put it this way: if Sarah Palin introduced and furthered her career using her looks, it's wrong to cry sexism when others point out that looks are all she's got worth noting. Especially when every decision since then has proven that this woman is no heavy lifter when it comes to thinking. (Think of Carrie Prejean, the dethroned Miss California, as another example of this trope.)

Now, you can make the caae that Sarah Palin was not the author of the meme that she's sexy and nothing else. Surely, there is an element of that to all female candidates--no matter how professional their conduct, some asshole is going to comment on their looks and reduce them to ugly/pretty, fuckable/not. It's a shame that that's happened to Sarah Palin because it shouldn't happen to anyone. But she invited that with her winking, her putting forth her fertility as proof that she was worth a darn as a politician (the "hockey mom" schtick). I'm not trying to blame the victim, I'm saying that this "victim," in my opinion, actively courted approval based on her attractiveness--she sold herself with sex in the first place, and has continued to do to stay popular.

Of course, I could be wrong and that is just what the media ran with. edgehopper pointed out that Obama and Palin have a few similarities in that they're both good looking people with little actual governing experience. We challenged Obama on his lack of experience through the campaign, as we did Sarah Palin, and none of the same "ooh, he's hot!" memes took off about Obama. Sexism? Palin and the McCain camp claimed it was. However, that seemed to me to just be a cover since when she was actually tested as a candidate and came up with that disastrous Katie Couric interview, she fell back to a position that boiled down to "don't ask me, I'm just a girl." As soon as she was exposed, she fell back on dog whistling to the base.

Should Newsweek have done better? Sure. But I think there's something to that blog I quoted about how this is about what Palin is doing to appeal, not what Newsweek is twisting out of it.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

The reason I don't think it's sexist is because I don't think it's all that "sexy" of a photo. I mean, I really don't have any sexual interest in Sarah Palin to begin with, but even if it was Angelina Jolie, would anyone really be getting all hot and bothered by the exact same picture? As ivy03 above me says (albeit for the opposite reason, it seems), it's not a bikini photo shoot. But maybe I just missed the "track-suit-as-turn-on" train that the rest of the world jumped on and rode off in.

FYI, the post says "here" in reference to an Obama photo, but no link is included.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that--fixed it I think.

Just for the record: the fact that you don't find the photo sexy doesn't prove sexism is present/absent. It's not about whether it appeals sexually to one person but whether or not the person in the image is being presented in a sexual manner. In this case, you can argue that she is. She's wearing tight clothes to show off her figure, and her legs are completely bare. It's hard to remember in our culture of sex that such things are still themselves sexual in a lot of ways. (In fact, you can argue that someone wearing tight/revealing clothes is sexier than someone naked since it leaves something to the imagination, which is always better at filling in the blanks with fantasy than nudity is.)

The issue is whether this picture is, disconnected from its running context, sexual. ivy03 argues that it is, that as soon as you take away the explanation that she's a runner and put her in those clothes, posed that way, it's sexualizing her in a way that would not be done to a man. I counter that if it is sexism, it is Sarah Palin manipulating it since that is her choice (or seems to have been since she became famous). She took this picture this way as much as she was posed this way. This is a favor to her fans, as much as anything else.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

I guess I would argue that right now, in the 21st century, given how overly sexualized everything else is in the media, that the image in question is not being presented in a sexual manner. The photo has a context, in Runner's World, but I don't think removing it from said context makes it a sexualized picture. She's not posing provocatively, in terms of runners outfits her dress is restrained, and she's posing in her house with the American flag, not on a beach or some visually striking environment.

Plus I'm pretty sure they were plastering Obama in his bathing suit on the cover of supermarket tabloid magazines long before this.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think you're right, actually. Obama was the nominee presumptive long before Sarah Palin was on the scene and we definitely saw him in his bathing suit before we saw her in her track suit.

Are there elements of that outfit she wears that could be construed as sexual? Oh hell yeah, but it takes some doing. I mentioned that her wearing something tight and revealing her legs falls under the category of sexualized presentation--easier to see how when you try to imagine a man doing that and being on a serious news mag. In this case, what I think is playing in here is part of what you mention--with our culture being heavily sexualized--working against this being an inherently sexy picture. If anything, it's about exercise, and exercise is not, to say the least, sexy in and of itself. It's almost too wholesome to be baudy.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I mean, she looks exactly like she should: like she's gonna go jogging. It seems very "political photo promoting exercise" to me. It seems so All-American of her.

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

What's creepy about that photo is that it looks so much like propaganda--like if I didn't know it was from a running magazine, I'd think it was plastered on posters somewhere with the tagline "Drill, baby, drill!"

At this point, I'm taking the total childish approach of "She asked for it!" It's bad, I know. But when someone who's policies totally do not reflect a pro-feminist agenda, I find that I simply do not fucking care when Palin whines about supposed sexism towards her. Too bad, so sad.

I'm feeling mean today. But I feel like all this focus on Palin--be it good or bad--makes it a hell of a lot harder for her to just GO AWAY. I mean, really, Newsweek? We already know she sucks!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I agree on some level--she's news only because they keep making her news. But I try to not go there with the thinking she deserved it too much. Because even though I technically think she did to some extent--she sold herself on being sexy--it's always out of control when it's a woman in the public light. So, yeah, she brought this on herself by pretending she had more to offer than looks, but I would think that of her if her policies and mine were more allied.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I like Matt Taibbi's take on Palin in general (touching upon the Newsweek broohaha in the process), "Sarah Palin, WWE star."

(Oh, and happy feminist Thanksgiving! Kick a pilgrim in the balls for me. :)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

He's a great writer in general, so I'm not surprised he's on the money here. I saw that interview with friends-of-Palin and wanted them all to spontaneously explode. Alas, wishes are not fishes.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm going to avoid punching people in the nuts, whatever hslayer thinks I'm doing for class :P

too funny

[arcfox7.livejournal.com]

I think Taibbi was right on in terms of what makes her popular, and I've struggled with how anyone could possibly see her as someone to be a fan of. Then I saw the interviews at the bottom of the article and I understood. The ridiculous christian conservatives who follow blindly anything that FOX News has told them. It was truly frightening to see the same blind uninformed following the leader that allowed Adolf Hitler to become leader of a country. Not that I think Palin is female Hitler, she's not smart enough for that. I shudder to think what would have happened if Mccain had been elected and died in office. and Kent I love your pic of Get a brain! Morans. That's truly awesome.