Yes, the nudie cover book is nearly upon us and it will soon be time for many to look the other way as raunch for raunch sake is promoted as feminism.
If you missed the sign, a slapped together op-ed in The Guardian recently let you know that, like spring, the hype was upon us.
Mud Flap Gal recycled her post from her site and her shout out to fellow Flap (who somehow missed Sandra Day O'Connor stepping down) to promote herself and her book. Copy and paste is an easy way to reach a word count but it don't count for much when you have so little to say.
It was time to revisit the discrimination that found her called "the Clinton boob girl." If you Google her name, that's what will be at the top. We Googled, it wasn't. Life has moved on, even if she hasn't.
In passing, C.I. noted a way Mud Flap Gal had damaged things for women that we were unaware of. C.I. said, "Hold on," picked up the phone and dialed. We were talking to an old term Air America-er, no longer involved, but once sitting on the board. Mud Flap Gal was so "obnoxious" that she sealed the deal for female bloggers on Air America Radio with a fall 2004 appearance. ("That Friday night appearance destroyed the chances for all women. There was a feeling of 'We don't even want to take a chance on that happening again.") It created a stir and not in the good way. Other than Janeane Garofalo, no one supported her, post appearance, and, if you wonder why it's all male blogger after male blogger on the radio syndicate/network these days, there's one reason for the pattern. (Sexism is another.) (Sam Seder was openly hostile on air with Mud Flap Gal who offered the verbal equivalent of sticking out one's tongue.)
Raunch sells . . . in some places. It made it very hard for a female blogger to get booked on Air America Radio. So, on behalf of female bloggers, "Thanks for harming the cause."*
Supposedly writing about what women bloggers go through, Mud Flap Gal cited herself repeatedly, one woman and then gave a shout out. If you ask Rebecca, she can tell you about very real abuse women bloggers have experienced because they've shared their stories with her. If you ask Rebecca, she can tell you about a middle-aged male who was such a stalker that her then ex-husband insisted she let him hire a bodyguard (Rebecca and Flyboy remarried last year). Convinced, because of a song title she'd mentioned, that they had a psychic connection and drooling over her breasts which he just knew were huge (yes, she is endowed), he started out semi-friendly and grew hostile as she refused to give out her phone number of address. Once he started narrowing down where she lived (ferry rides on the east coast outside of NYC do tend to narrow it down on its own) he managed to find a woman who once worked for her. He presented himself as an old friend who wanted to surprise Rebecca. The woman gave out nothing and immediately phoned Rebecca to ask, "Who was that weirdo?" That's when Rebecca okayed the bodyguard.
At this site an interesting thing happened early on. The TV commentaries were popular from the start and people often agreed or disagreed, wanted to add to the discussion, wanted to loudly disagree, what have you. Nothing out of the norm. The moment we announced that Ava and C.I. were writing the TV reviews themselves, and note, they'd been doing so for several weeks before we announced it with no change in the e-mails, suddenly it was "slut" this and "bitch" that and threats began coming in like crazy. C.I. took it all in stride (noting, good or bad, it's all fan mail) but Ava was especially shook up by an e-mail announcing, in great detail, how she and C.I. would be carved up because the e-mailed noted a sweater that she did own. (This was when Ava was attending a NY university and, as C.I. pointed out at the time, "He also thinks I live in NY and am a student which shows how little he knows.")
So those are some real life stories of real life threats. But it's the being called a "slut" (and presumably "Clinton boob girl") that has Mud Flap Gal endorsing a system of Net Nannies where people will patrol and enforce.
"I've been called worse and for good reason," Bette Davis once said. Is it fair that someone who disagrees with you or actively hates you calls you a "slut"? No. If, like Don Imus, they are backed by sponsors, there sponsors should be called on it. But if you only want the kind words, you probably shouldn't be putting yourself out there -- male or female. Before someone, as it is laughably made in the non-op-ed, claims that's a "S/He asked for it" response, it isn't. If you post photos online for public viewing, then they are going to be viewed by the public. If you leave your front door unlocked (as Cedric just found out), don't be surprised if someone walks in. Did Cedric ask for that? No. But, and he'll be the first to admit it, he should have locked his front door (and thought he had).** It's why C.I. refuses to allow us to use photos here but will allow them in the newsletters. If, for example, a Hillary Clinton photo goes up here that means someone is going to grab it and distort it, photo shop it, what have you. The smart thing to do is not post publicly photos which you don't want everyone to see.
In the real world, people are going to throw sticks and stones. "Clinton boob girl" the most humiliating thing in your life? How fortunate her life has been. We honestly wouldn't have been aware of it had she not (again) made it an issue. We've never seen the photo (just read her tell the story over and over) but a "boob" (in another sense) is a supposed 'editor' who meets with a former president while agreeing that nothing discussed can be talked about. A 'boob' is someone who participates in a photo-op that does nothing but generate publicity.
Someone should have explained to Mud Flap Gal that not all publicity is good publicity. And that if you must have an "off the record" meeting, you probably shouldn't publicize it with photos. (That goes for all participating, not just Mud Flap.)
It should also be noted that the ways that all women are reduced to objects at left sites could be addressed. For instance, in a thread supposedly about Sam Seder, care to count how many comments on and links to "boobs" there are (at least one rushes to assure that it's work environment safe 'barely')? How does that happen? Can the site's male moderator not advise his posters to "chill" with the breast talk? It's a left site and it says a great deal about the mindset of some on the left that they feel writing about "boobs" is political conversation.
We're much more worried about that than we are about people who disagree with our opinions and want to call us names. When that goes on, at a left site, and the moderator doesn't call it out, it sends messages. One is that the conversation is perfectly okay. Another, and this is how we learned of it, is that a woman reading no longer feels she's welcome at the site -- not by the moderator, but by the mindset of some of the ones posting comments. She wrote, "I thought I was going to read people's thoughts on Sam Seder and instead it was like I was stuck with the Maxim crowd. There was a leering quality that just disgusted me and made me feel like half the people there saw me as nothing but a set of breasts."
How did that happen? We don't visit the site very often but it's not the way the moderator writes. (If it is, we've never seen him write that way.) (If he does write that way, you need to e-mail common_ills@yahoo.com because C.I. will pull the site from the links if that is the case.)
But somehow, people have the idea, let's be real, men have the idea that a thread, at a left site, on Sam Seder is the place to swap "boob" photos and talk "boobs."
"Let me tell you, it's not easy to build a career as a feminist writer . . ." Let us tell you, shallow thoughts and being tickled over a book called C*nt doesn't advance the cause of feminism, but, maybe it's not really about feminism? Maybe the "build a career" is what it's really about? Has the fancy of Do-me feminism finally passed and been replaced with Me-me feminism?
When this site started one of the things C.I. advised us was "Don't read your own press." You'll be loved by some, ignored by some and trashed by others. If you ignore the bad stuff, you'll get an inflated view of yourself. If you just read the bad, you'll be angry or depressed. As community members know, C.I. got trashed on KPFA by a guest who had made a clumsy pass years ago and been rejected. We all awaited the response. There's still been none. C.I.'s friends still that bring that up, well over a year later. It's basically seen as an intended slam from someone spurned on the East Coast. C.I. didn't listen, won't listen and has never commented on it. To this day. The person has been cited here. We've mentioned him here from time to time. Usually because C.I.'s added it. There's never been an attempt by C.I. to even the score. We were ready to. We were ready to go to town. We thought, "Fine, give it a week or two and then we'll do it." It doesn't matter, is C.I.'s attitude. The only thing that can hurt you is when you hurt yourself. C.I.'s example? Making the mistake, in the midst of chemo, to share that detail with someone in an e-mail only to find out that it was used to mock (the next day) at a site. "For whatever reasons it happened on the other end," C.I. says, "the truth is the only one who hurt me was me for being dumb enough to try to explain why I didn't have the time at that moment to be responding in an e-mail."
*(No woman participating in the writing of this piece has any desire to appear on TV or radio as a gas bag or as a "fun bag.")
** Cedric wants it noted that he always locks his front door and can't believe he hadn't this time. He also thinks it's funny that C.I. made the front door analogy as we were discussing the feature and, in the middle of writing it, at 2:30 in the morning his time, his front door opens and a strange man walks in hollering, "James." Cedric's fine. He scared us and the stranger. We heard this spooky as hell voice scream, "Get out!" The guy ran off. When Cedric was back on the phone, he explained, he was trying to scare the guy "who was quite a bit bigger than me."