Today, a bit of creepy irony, courtesy of Janet Bloomfield’s JudgyBitch blog.
Yesterday, Bloomfield put up a post (archived here) with the title “Feminists borrowing from terrorists now?” The source of her outrage? The anger directed at the now-notorious “Are You Beach Body Ready” ads posted in London tube stations by a weightloss powder company called Protein World.
The ads’ detractors, many of them feminists, think that the ad campaign contributes to fat shaming. Some of these critics have — gasp! — written on the ads with magic markers to express their dissatisfaction, acts of minor vandalism that the company’s CEO indignantly denounced as “terrorism.” No, really.
The company has also, it claims, gotten a number of threats, including a bomb threat. That’s a lot more serious, and completely indefensible; bomb threats are indeed intended to terrorise.
The irony? When I went to take a look at Bloomfield’s post last night, this was the first comment left on it:
I’m sorry, but that’s pretty fucking creepy. And it’s now been up on her site for a day.
I’m not quite sure how Bloomfield figures that bomb threats are terrorism but a comment warning feminists that “I’ll have my vengeance” is fine.
You’d think people not knowing why you had your vengeance would be kind of counter-productive.
Let’s take a trip[ through JBs mind. Hold on tight. It’s going to be spooky!
*fuzzy wave effect*
Remember when people changed the Ford billboards to say “Like a cock” in protest of billboards blocking out the horizon?
Terrorists.
You know those stop signs that say things like “worrying” or “Hammertime” under the “STOP”?
Terrorism
Banksy?
Terrorist.
Men who send women death and rape threats ?
Simply disagreeing.
Calling molested children whores?
Human rights activism.
*fuzzy wave effect*
Did that ride make anyone else want to upchuck?
It seems we have an epidemic of “Offensitivity.” Geez. While I think it’s great that people of size (hey, I’m a fluffy butt myself) have the gumption to stand up and say that they’re okay just the way they are, this backlash against “fat shaming” is too radical to me. Just like “fat shaming” is too radical to me. I see an ad like the one above and I flip it the bird in my mind too, but I shrug and think, “whatever, sex sells, I’m gonna go back to my knitting now.” I have no compulsion to deface the ad or scream or cry or beat my chest or take to twitter because frankly all those things take up too much of my energy that I could be devoting to yarn, the Hubster, bad movies, and a general fun time.
Seriously, revenge for what? Revenge for vandalism of a diet ad?
He wants to go Marc Lepine/Elliot Roger over some scribbles on an ad? Bullshit. These are men who do not need an excuse to want to hurt women. They are vile.
First they came for the boners, and I did not speak out:
because I was flaccid
The Knitting Cinephile
Just because you’re apathetic, doesn’t mean other people should be. You cannot honestly tell me you do not understand why people of a certain body type deserve acceptance rather than degradation, can you?
Lea, that ride was like the boat ride in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but worse.
Auto correct hell as=as Shown=Shoah at least it got 4by2 right (I’m east end Jewish BTW so I can say it I think).
Wait, is she outraged that people, some who are confirmed feminists, are drawing on the ads or outraged at the bomb threat, which the article makes no mention of the bomb threat being connected to any feminist or feminism organization?
Well, I KNOW which one, but still.
There’s an interpretation of quantum theory that states that, in some other universe somewhere, JB is not a feverish angry ball of ick, protesting that the world does not work to her satisfaction.
It bears mentioning once again that AVFHM hosted Mark Bell’s “hey guys you should firebomb courthouses here’s how” manifesto for years.
Thomas Ball! The manifesto guy was Thomas Ball!
I should have googled that before posting. Apologies to powerlifter Mark Bell, and British musician Mark Bell.
People are speaking up about things that harm them in ways that you can hear, gasp horror.
The ad and *especially* the way the company reacted to people speaking out about it are just awful. women already get tons of messages every day that we can’t do anything in our lives without checking first if we look “acceptable” – and of course we never really do, because the standards are impossible to achieve without a ton of professional make-up, possibly surgery and lots of photoshopping. And some people are outraged that women might actually have a problem with an ad that tells us we can’t even go to the beach and relax there from our stressfull lives without achieving an impossible beauty standard first?
Cinephile, I don’t think it IS necessarily only “people of size” who dislike ads like this. It’s anyone who resents advertising telling you that if you don’t fit into this very narrow idea of “attractive” you need to feel bad and buy whatever product they’re shilling. It’s to the marketer’s advantage to have this “attractiveness” be as narrow as possible in order to maximize potential customer base. Personally I see an ethical issue with preying on people’s insecurities, which 90% of advertising does, but body shaming is particularly repugnant to me. And I’m not exactly a fluffy butt, as you call it.
@theknittingcinephile, maybe you aren’t aware of it, but fat people really do suffer from thin privilege, in the US, at least. We are at risk for substandard medical care from health professionals who want to treat our weight and not our symptoms. We are less likely to get a job and less likely to make as much in our work as thin people when we do get a job. Fat shaming is a big part of that, it makes it acceptable to offer poor medical care and to discriminate against the overweight financially.
I agree with Fnoicby – I am thin and can’t stand ads like that. First, I don’t know any woman (no matter her size) who doesn’t have any insecurities about her body because nobody is “perfect”, not even the people who appear in ads like this. Second, even though I profit from thin privilege, that doesn’t mean that I can’t empathize with people who don’t.
If anyone wants to check it out: “Beauty Redefined” is a really awesome nonprofit organization – from their homepage:
“Beauty Redefined is all about rethinking our ideas of “beautiful” and “healthy” that we’ve likely learned from for-profit media that thrives off female insecurity. Girls and women who feel OK about their bodies — meaning they aren’t “disgusted” with them like more than half of women today* — take better care of themselves. With body shame and eating disorders at epidemic levels, this point is crucial!”
They also sell sticky notes with positive messages you can slap on ads like this one (or just hand them out or whatever).
This is their homepage: http://www.beautyredefined.net
As someone who has had EDs and had body image issues my whole life, I do find the whole diet industry very harmful. It’s not because I’m addicted to be outraged and offensive. Spreading messages that only one type of body is acceptable in order to sell inadequately regulated and sometimes harmful products is offensive. If anyone, of any body size is unaffected by these messages, that’s great! We’re not all so lucky though.
From the Independent article:
So basically, he’s saying “Oh, those hysterical women!” How quaint.
Making bomb threats is fucked up and wrong. But protesting against an advertisement? Writing “fuck your sexiam” on a billboard? It takes some pretty skillful mental gymnastics to say that’s terrorism.
Especially when one of your commenters is promising some kind of revenge against feminists.
JB. Classy as always.
@sparky, I wonder how he knows they shout a lot, based on the fact they wrote on billboards? It’s almost like he’s just making things up.
Ugh. It’s kinda mind-boggling how ProteinWorld thinks they can write off all these complaints as the hysterical whining of petty Feminists with “issues”, in a public forum, and still come out of this with good PR. What’s worse than the ads is the doubling-down and the bullying attitude.
I’d be more creeped out by someone making sinister vows of vengeance against Feminists if AVFM didn’t more or less do exactly that every other week already. JB’s probably desensitized to it, like the way sewage workers can’t even notice the lingering stench of filth after a few hours working in the drains. She sure doesn’t seem to smell Paulie’s shit.
autosoma, I deleted one of your comments. I know what you meant, but it could have been misread (or deliberately misrepresented) by some hostile MRA type.
I like to think that the threats are the only thing that’s being called terrorism here and the magic marker defiling is called for all it is, vandalism. Simple, harmless vandalism.
Here’s something that irks me:
Dressing well = looking as tall and thin as possible.
I’m not tall. I’m not thin. No point on a shoe or strategically placed color blocking is going to fool anyone. It isn’t like they are going to see me the next day in a different outfit and be like, “*Gasp!* Were you stung by a whole hive of bees?”
Bomb threats count as terrorism. That’s true.
Did JB ever take the person who sent a bomb threat to Anita Sarkesian to task?
Now, if a bomb threat is terrorism, what are campaigns of sustained death and rape threats meant to drive women offline and out of certain communities?