the pink politic

Who needs a brain when you have these?

So reads women's t-shirt by Abercrombie & Fitch. How charming. But how can we blame the store when women are actually buying these tees for $34.50 or whatever Abercrombie is charging for its misogyny advertisements these days?

Bob Herbert wrote a fabulous column "Why Aren't We Shocked?" in the Times last Sunday in response to the nation's apathy regarding school shootings that specifically targeted girls for sexual assault and death. The primary focus of all the news coverage was this rash of school shootings, not that the killers singled out young girls to fulfill their sick and murderous fantasies.

Herbert writes, "Imagine if a gunman had gone into a school, separated the kids up on the basis of race or religion, and then shot only the black kids. Or only the white kids. Or only the Jews." He calls the shootings hate crimes against women.

He goes on, "We have a problem. Staggering amounts of violence are unleashed on women every day, and there is no escaping the fact that in the most sensational stories, large segments of the population are titillated by that violence. We've been watching the sexualized image of the murdered 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey for 10 years. JonBenet is dead. Her mother is dead. And we'’re still watching the video of this poor child prancing in lipstick and high heels.

"What have we learned since then? That there'’s big money to be made from thongs, spandex tops and sexy makeovers for little girls. In a misogynistic culture, it'’s never too early to drill into the minds of girls that what really matters is their appearance and their ability to please men sexually.

"A girl or woman is sexually assaulted every couple of minutes or so in the U.S. The number of seriously battered wives and girlfriends is far beyond the ability of any agency to count. We'’re all implicated in this carnage because the relentless violence against women and girls is linked at its core to the wider society's casual willingness to dehumanize women and girls, to see them first and foremost as sexual vessels, objects,— and never, ever as the equals of men."

Truly, how can we ever hope to see a woman president in our lifetime? How could a society that fuels a $7-billion porn industry that shows real-life beatings and sexual assaults of women ever be led by the very object of its twisted degradation?

posted by Tina @ 11:41 AM