Women's bodies and the men's World Cup

The World Cup games start tomorrow (Friday, June 11), and I'll be watching as many of the games as possible. I was on Facebook earlier this week, reading some of my friends' discussions about the World Cup, when I found the "FIFA 2010 World Cup - United States Fan Page" and was not pleased with the picture on the page*.

Image: A screen shot of part of the Facebook fan page mentions above, with an profile image on the left featuring the torso and arm of a dirt-splattered woman in a sports bra who is bending backward and balancing a soccer ball on her chest.

Objectifying women to advertise and sell everything from hamburgers to cars is commonplace. However, this particular image bothers me because of the numerous barriers women face when it comes to being accepted as true athletes. This sort of image, which associates women with the sport not as competitors but as objects for consumption of real people (read men) who can enjoy and even participate in the sport, is troublesome because it relegates women's bodies to the realm of fantasy and may help keep them off the field.

UPDATE: Reader rwatuny alerted me to the fact that the picture in question on this Facebook page is a modified one that is part of a larger photoshoot, apparently for the Chinese version of GQ magazine.

*This image is no longer the profile image on the fan page but can still be found in the page's photo collection. I was unable to determine if this was a picture that had been created specifically by the page's administrator(s) or if it had been taken from another source.

Arizona immigration law prompts bigots to come out into the light of day

So I haven't blogged about this yet, but it has been a topic of many conversations in my daily life for a good few days now.

I'm talking about the Arizona immigration law, SB 1070, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer.

The law is the strictest immigration law in the country, and even before it was signed into law, the proposal received heat from critics about its potential impacts. According the The New York Times:

The law, which proponents and critics alike said was the broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations, would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Opponents have called it an open invitation for harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status.

Well, in further news about why Arizona fails, read here (Arizona legislators try to pass bill that says Obama must prove citizenship), here (Arizona grades experienced teachers on fluency), and here (legislators take issue with ethnic studies programs). Feel free to debate these topics thoughtfully and carefully in comments. I'll be moderating the thread pretty closely.

I have had people debate with me about whether or not this law and its implications are racist. They have all been debates with white people. For example, on May 1 I posted a status on my Facebook account that read: "Do I look 'illegal'?" and quickly I had a white friend of mine respond. I debated with him for a time, and eventually he said, "Also, as cliche as this may be... STEREOTYPES EXIST FOR A REASON!"

To put it briefly, it was his justification for racial profiling. And it disgusted me. He has always held problematic, racist beliefs, but generally he keeps them to himself. It was as if he took this status of mine as an opportunity to let loose all of his hatred.

For this reason, the Arizona law, at the very least, is prompting racist individuals to be loud and proud about their bigotry in a new, heightened manner. As an Hispanic American (born in the states) whose father was born in Mexico, and an individual who is deeply against racism directed at any people, this disturbs me deeply. Go ahead and argue the legality of the law. What can't be denied is that this has prompted a fresh wave of attacks against a group of people based on their legal status as related to their skin color.

And that's called racism.

EDIT 4:17 pm, 5/4/10: via Feministing, "The Far-Right Movement Behind Arizona Copycat Bills"

EDIT 5/5/10: I'm going to put a trigger warning in effect for the comments. I had moderation off and some got through before I was able to get back at my computer. They will stay up because people have responded to them.

Mike Huckabee creates a stir on my Facebook news feed

Facebook is clearly the best place for anyone (like me) who clearly has nothing better to do than try to educate their friends about sexism/racism/homophobia.

Mike Huckabee recently went to The College of New Jersey and was interviewed by the school's newspaper. A transcript of the interview provides the following quote from Huckabee, about legalizing same-sex marriage:

"That would be like saying, well there's there are a lot of people who like to use drugs so let's go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, should we accommodate them?" he said, according to a transcript of the interview.

One of my friends wrote a status about this quote saying that he did not think the comparison was hateful at all. I responded to his status, but I will keep my analysis out of the comments for the time being.

So go ahead, discuss.

A post in which I question my participation in social networking...

Like millions of other people in the world, I have a Facebook account. I started my account in order to network with people who would be attending Knox College with me, and over the years it has grown into one of my preferred methods of communicating with people I am unable to see often.

However, Facebook is often a cause of much frustration for me because it gives people space to proclaim some rather shockingly sexist attitudes and beliefs. For example, one male on my friends list recently posted a status that said, "handjobs are like the WNBA, a cheap imitation of something guys do better themselves." I tried to point out how this was sexist, but the poster seemed to get distracted and have his attitude reinforced by others who commented saying that this status was funny.

I call out sexist/homophobic/racist statuses rather frequently to varying degrees of success. But today I was met with a shocking Facebook fan page. Anyone can make a fan page on Facebook, and currently there is a growing trend for people to make pages for anything even remotely clever that might attract fans. Today in the "Suggestions" sidebar of my Facebook home page, I was introduced to a fan page for "more girls go to college than boys, so stfu and make ME a sandwich," a page with more than 147,000 fans* and some pretty horribly sexist photos.

(click for a better view)

"But Amelia," people will say. "The first part is true. More girls are in college than boys. And the other part is a joke. Stop being a humorless feminist and just take a joke. It's a joke, see? Haha!"

I'll be honest. I am writing this post without knowing the current statistics when it comes to gender and college attendance in America (I know that my college is about 60/40 when it comes to women/men), but even if it is true beyond a doubt that more women attend college then men, that does not excuse the sexist language in the title of this page. Yes, it may be an inversion of a sexist trope, but I don't find it funny because it is still being used to put people down.**

The "make me a sandwich" trope is used so commonly that most people probably don't recognize the problems it presents. It is often used as a means of demeaning women who dare to make something of themselves. It is used to put women "in their place" - the kitchen, where they can serve men. Turning this on men does not make it funny. It's still sexist, through and through.**

The worst part of this terrible fan page?

Two of my friends are fans.

*At approximately 8:15pm CST on April 7, 2010 when I took the screen shot featured above

**EDIT (4/8/10): Added some lines to clarify that inverting a sexist "joke" so that it's aimed at men does not mean it's funny.