Target Women: Birth Control

This is a video from a current.tv show online called InfoMania.
Recently I’ve been hooked on watching every single “Target Women” installment that is available online, since one was posted on the Feministing blog about the pitfalls of Disney princesses. They’re short, funny, made by the only woman host of InfoMania, and are a beneficial model for critiquing product and media influences on women. One of my favorites is this video on birth control commercials and their interestingly vague approach to promoting contraceptive’s main purpose: preventing pregnancy. Allowing for the fact that this video segment edited commercials for their main purpose: producing a compelling video proving that they are vague, I still have a lot of experience watching these commercials and wondering if I buy a NuvaRing if my wardrobe will become as adorably trendy and flattering as their actresses. Basically, birth control commercials will address women’s universal desire to decrease the amount of time spent menstruating or being effected by “hormonal” symptoms that are unpleasant to experience and make us women unpleasant to be around, but they’ll leave out the essential concept: No Babies Please! Since I’m planning on doing my final project on birth control and clinic access in Minnesota, it has been interesting to see and think about what birth control companies are projecting as their ideal. An ethnically diverse cast of heterosexual women, who all mysteriously having lots of sex but not talking about it and are of the same upper middle class status, are shown shopping and eating salads and dancing playfully and on their laptops researching birth control diligently! No mention of sexual activity, pregnancy or babies is made. Why can’t a commercial be real and address concerns like ACCESS or affordability or even how well one brand of hormone will protect you in comparison to another? Instead, each brand boasts how well it can control your irritability, cramps and general desire to avoid talking about sexual activity at all costs. It’s all about the language of being discreet to achieve a plateau of hormonal levels that will keep you peppy, smiling and looking put together all day, every day with your best pals that are doing the same! Anything beyond that, talk to your doctor if you have specific concerns, or just in general want to know why women who use birth control are all so dang happy about it.

http://current.com/items/89157733_target_women_birth_control

Sarah Palin, ACK!

I've recently been extremely worried about the election. It seems to be looming in the distant future, with only more and more depressing news being released every day. With the onslaught of Palin press, I cannot help but think that I have never felt that my reproductive rights were more imminently threatened. Granted, my reproductive rights only recently became an important part in my life considering my age, but in sharing this concern with women, including my mom and godmother and other women generations before me, they concur. In working within the pro-choice and comprehensive sex ed movements at Planned Parenthood and other organizations, I've heard many women who there echo my concerns about Roe vs. Wade, even before Palin took the stage as GOP VP nominee. Many believe it will take an actual overturning of that historic case for the majority of women in the country to wake up to how perilous our reproductive rights have become. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it seems as if we're getting too close for my comfort. I was relieved, a bit, to read this recent article posted on Feministing.com about women viewing Palin more skeptically than men. The poll appeared on FiveThirtyEight.com on August 30th and it states that the gender gap is present and unexpectedly skewed. Women have a 23 point difference between Ayes and Nays about whether or not Palin is ready to be President. Basically, the gap between (the majority) of women polled who believe she is not ready and those who believe she is ready is much larger among women than men, proving Palin's divisive powers. I hope that this momentum continues and that women continue to question her policies and positions as they may be more able to look past her "hockey mom, bookish hottie" image and cut through the bullshit to what is really going on here.

Thanks to Feministing.com and http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/women-more-skeptical-of-palin-than-men.html.

"A look at the American male as a crude, aggressive jerk"

My mom just sent me an article from the New York Times Book Review by Wesley Yang, detailing a new book that was just released called “Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men,” by Michael Kimmel. It begins by talking about how heterosexual women can possibly hope to have “healthy, empowering sex” if their generation is accompanied by counterparts in “emotionally misshapen men.” There is luckily now a book that will illuminate (for these women, one can only assume, since if men are already living in Guyland, they wouldn't need to buy the guidebook) the societal expectations placed on men that forcibly emotionally stunt them. This book mainly addresses the concerns of heterosexual, “young middle-class white men,” and I was impressed by the articles attention to how racially divisive this "separate space" can be, but the review's author quickly drops his concern for the effects of Guyland on women and race relations and doesn't bring it up again. My question is, if "Guyland" is what the majority of young heterosexual males inhabit, where do college-age, heterosexual women fit in?

Also, Yang's perspective on the validity of Kimmel's argument suggests that "the pressure to behave like a loutish Guylander is stronger now than ever before [which] youth-extending urban hordes will recognize as absurd on its face." I don't know if I identify as a member of these so-called "urban hordes," but I do believe there is incredible pressure for guys to abide by "Guy Code," maintain their masculinity through homophobic professions, and are brought up in a culture of instant gratification. Maybe I'm missing something here, but the title of my post is the byline of the article, and it does not deliver on its promise to explain away the aggression and domination of a generation. Instead it fails to mention the societal and systemic support systems that multiple generations of young boys have had at their disposal as they "mature" into men and live their lives as a member of a dominant culture. I'm not so interested in why this generation's masculinity, as Kimmel asserts, "is coerced and policed relentlessly by other guys," but instead why this generation is the first to be called out on this issue, and why Kimmel leaves out his own generation's definition of masculinity and benefits from the preferential treatment that is gendered and bestowed upon men, and has been for hundreds of years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/books/review/Yang-t.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=guyland&st=cse&oref=slogin