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Feministe Feedback:

Jill

A reader writes in looking for help for a course:

I’m teaching a course on recognizing privilege to 10-12 graders in the fall. In order to teach it effectively, I need examples of any sort of racist, sexist, homophobic and rape jokes made by actual comedians or on television; egregious ads; horrid articles; and any other examples. obviously i can find all this stuff, but i wondered if you might be willing to put out a call on feministe and folks can send me anything they have. for example, i will using assorted ricky gervais rape jokes, the dove ad that you discussed, things like that.

Leave suggestions in the comments.

68 thoughts on Feministe Feedback:

  1. Have you read Where the Girls Are by Susan Douglas? Some of her examples might be a bit dated, but there’s some really good content in there about being a conscientious consumer of media.

    I would also recommend last year’s Super Bowl commercials–men not wearing pants was a recurring theme.

  2. Microaggressions.com could help. It has a lot more variety than I think what you’re looking for, but there’s a lot of ads and pop-culture aggressions you could use.

  7. So there’s this TV show called Wilfred, about a guy with a dog who’s actually a person in a dog suit or something; not the point. I didn’t know it existed until I saw an episode last night. It’s obviously one of those comedy shows that’s trying to be all dark and edgy, but I was pretty blown away by how racist it was. There was one character of color in the episode, a heavily accented Haitian nurse who knows, thanks to her magical Haitian voodoo skills, that the dog isn’t what he’s pretending to be. One of the other nurses apologizes for her: “She’s been a total bitch since that earthquake killed her family.” The nurse continues to threaten to expose Wilfred, so he pushes her off the roof and fakes a suicide note. No grief or anything, since she wasn’t actually portrayed as a person. Stereotypical and dead.

    I’d like to think that this is so over the top it’s meant to make people uncomfortable (which, of course, doesn’t make it ok), but I just did a search for recaps of the episode and found the earthquake bit referenced as the funniest line of the night, so I don’t actually have much faith in that theory. The episode is called “Respect” (and no, that doesn’t refer to respect for other cultures), and you can find recaps of it online.

  8. We had some good discussion in one of my classes about the snickers “do something manly” ads– I think there were a whole series of them, and I was able to find at least 1 by goolge-ing “snickers do something manly.”
    I find these ads pretty rich in content to discuss because not only do they make use of heterosexissm, but they could also be interpreted as playing on stereotypes of working class folks– that they’re somehow hyper invested in upholding certain sexual and gender norms. Also you could talk about the conflation of gender and sexuality (“we accidentally did something ‘gay,’ now we have to do something ‘manly'”). I’m sure the list of potential conversations goes on, that’s just what I remember talking about.
    Awesome that you’re looking to have these conversations!

  10. Pingback: Rape Jokes for the Classroom « Clarissa's Blog

  11. Rape: See Family Guy: http://vimeo.com/5541344

    Racism: See Michael Richards’ standup (aka Kramer from Seinfeld): http://www.metacafe.com/watch/307809/seinfelds_kramers_racist_tirade_of_craziness/

    Sexism: See the Heineken commercial where they turn a woman into a beer keg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-NfrBgYIEQ

    Homophobia: See the articles on the many recent gay teen suicides from bullying in schools and churches, as well as the It Gets Better project. Also see the Ambiguously Gay Duo sketches on Saturday Night Live: http://www.hulu.com/watch/241605/saturday-night-live-ambiguously-gay-duo

    Hope this helps!
    -Michelle

  12. One that could be great for discussion are the “Sassy Gay Friend” skits out of Second City. There are several, and they’re all (mostly?) on youtube … there’s one here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKttq6EUqbE

    I think the underlying intention, originally, was to put a twist on stories that marginalized women (a lot of the skits revolve around Shakespeare’s main female characters) … but it’s like reverse empowerment … the female characters end up making better, more self-assertive decisions, but they need their gay friend to make it happen, and then he calls them “a stupid bitch.” In a joking way, of course, because it’s Just Jokes!

    They’d be good for a class too, because they’re all really short, so you could show a whole one and then discuss.

  14. Randy Shilts describes an anchor from one of the major networks speaking at a gathering of journalists in San Francisco in the early 80s and leading with the question “What’s the hardest part about having AIDS?”. Answer: “Convincing your wife you’re Haitian.” He says it was that joke that spurred him into writing “And The Band Played On” because he couldn’t believe someone would joke about AIDS, especially to a group of journalists who focused on it in one of the epicenters of the early epidemic, as if no one in the room could have had it (as Shilts later found out he did) or known anyone who’d been diagnosed or died already from it.

  15. Angel H.:
    Isn’t asking for examples of privilege when one can admittedly “find all this stuff” oneself an example of privilege?

    It’s a big internets out there.

  17. …..or, maybe, she wants some ideas and perspectives that she might NOT find herself. A large group of intelligent feminists seems like an excellent population to poll for this sort of thing. If it bothers you, don’t offer any suggestions.

  19. I think Starvin’ Marvin from South Park is a pretty blatant example of racism and privilege.

  20. All I’m saying is that when someone usually comes here and says, “privilege: show me it,” they get turned away. Besides, this person found Feministe easliy enough, and he or she (there’s nothing saying what gender the person identifies as, not that it should matter) wanted an example and I gave it to him or her.

  21. chava:
    …..or, maybe, she wants some ideas and perspectives that she might NOT find herself. A large group of intelligent feminists seems like an excellent population to poll for this sort of thing.If it bothers you, don’t offer any suggestions.

    Agreed. Someone operating from a position of privilege may not recognize something as potentially marginalizing, not residing in said margins hirself.

  22. Asking for voluntary input and help from a large group of generally anonymous people is an example of privilege?

  23. roro80: Asking for voluntary input and help from a large group of generally anonymous people is an example of privilege?

    The assumption that it’s the marginalized person’s job to teach the privileged person about their oppression is an example of privilege.

  24. Angel H.: The assumption that it’s the marginalized person’s job to teach the privileged person about their oppression is an example of privilege.

    Where did she make that assumption?

  25. “All I’m saying is that when someone usually comes here and says, “privilege: show me it,” they get turned away.”

    Isn’t that because a question like that is usually coming from a place of disbelief that that particular privilege exists, or asking for someone to be some sort of exotic teacher figure, whether they want to or not? That clearly wasn’t the case here. I guess anyone who has access to a large audience of like-minded people certainly has privilege, but clearly we all have the ability to ask someone from the communities we frequent for help?

  26. I thought that too, but in the teacher’s email, s/he mentions the Dove adverts and Ricky Gervais’ trivialisation of rape, so evidently s/he’s done some research. It’s not like s/he’s asking us to do her or his homework (voluntarily or otherwise)!

  27. Maybe the poster should list a full personal description, and then only those with equal or greater privilege can answer the call for ideas. *eyeroll*

  30. I think this is more akin to crowd-sourcing/lazy-webbing. Ze says ze can find all this, but I actually doubt that – if I needed an array of examples of social injustice for a course, I’d definitely start by reaching out to fellow activists because I know there’s way more out there than I know about.

    That being said, the description of the course is kind of vague – I’d be curious to know how the course is intended to be run. Depending on the kids and the educational context, it might be hell on wheels trying to get through to them with something like privilege analysis, and some examples might provide more fodder for bigotry than thoughtful consideration. I hope it’s a smaller class and that the kids either have internal motivation to be there or there’s some kind of effective motivational component involved to get them to buy in to the idea and be open to change and critical thinking. Otherwise, I would suggest that the teacher sticks to the most basic and clear-cut of examples, introduce things carefully, and be aware of the fact that what is just an example for one student might be the very real and very painful lived experience for another. Privilege education has a way of centering the privileged and turning the oppressed into teacher’s aids.

  31. How about those Swiffer ads where women are made to represent dirt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPn7FntWUmU

    Also I would strongly suggest trying to do an analysis of the kinds of things you DON’T (or very rarely) see in advertizing, such as men doing any kind of household cleaning or childcare. It is seriously stunning how many ads for laundry detergent or dish soap or Windex or Pampers or baby food NEVER show men using these products.

  32. FWIW –

    I teach a segment on this for intro phil and freshman struggle with what is for some of them a fundamental shift in perspective from people as members of fixed categories to people as individuals. I try to explicitly discuss that perspective shift early to avoid the rush of gender essentialism for example. That said, after those classes, I’m often in need of a stiff drink.

  34. Also, to echo what Mr. Kristen J said, I have a friend who used to teach “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” in a college-level sociology class. She always had students who just didn’t get it. At all.

  35. More on the slightly-more-than-was-solicited advice front: Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Gary Lemons’ Black Male Outsider: Teaching as a Pro-Feminist Man discuss anti-racist and feminist pedagogy as well, although again often from a post-secondary standpoint (Tatum talks a lot about the high school environment as well, though), and might be useful resources for anyone thinking about social justice teaching.

  36. @RachelA – WORD! In a similar vein, a game I play with weeIrish is to make note of how many times it’s the white blue-eyed blond boy that gets to say “I win!” at the end of the game/toy commercial vs any girl or boy of other race. Or how many super heroes/cartoon or comic book leads are WBEB boys and men versus the gender and race of the side-kick/secondary characters and villians. But maybe this is a little “young” for 10-12th graders.

  37. Angel H.: The assumption that it’s the marginalized person’s job to teach the privileged person about their oppression is an example of privilege.

    I understand the frustration when someone pops up in a commenting thread to question whether a particular kind of privilege exists and demands that someone teach them about it. But surely we can all be okay with people who make clearly good-faith requests for recommendations. In my opinion, we’re a better community if the response to questions like “I’d like to recommend a good book on feminism to my niece — does anyone have suggestions for really good young-adult intros to feminism?” is not “it’s privileged to assume that anyone else should help you find that”.

  38. I was watching a History channel documentary this weekend called Third Reich: The Rise. There was a particularly disturbing quotation read by the narrator from the time-frame in which the Third Reich/Germany annexed Austria: “If Hitler is raping Austria, then Austria likes being raped.” I believe it was a line not written for the film but quoted from a newspaper of the time but I can’t find that anywhere.

  39. The song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

    Also, I saw a billboard for Miller encouraging designated driving. There was a picture of a dude saying, “I’m a designated driver” and the caption was: “the pick up line that works every time”.

  43. Angel H.:
    Isn’t asking for examples of privilege when one can admittedly “find all this stuff” oneself an example of privilege?

    *headdesk* Ay yi yi…

    I agree with everyone who has explained to you why it makes no sense to call the question asker out. Geez.

  44. It doesn’t get more homophobic than Eddie Murphy’s stand up.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egoDQv43hAw (Delirious).

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgX9_NxlzTE&feature=related (Raw)

    I would suggest watching both of those stand ups in full if you’re looking for material, Raw especially (most of the middle is Eddie’s patriarchal take on relationships.) In addition, both of the stand ups are hilarious despite being awful, so you wont have anyone suggesting that only bad people enjoy racist/sexist/homophobic comedy.

  45. I’m sure you’ll find a bajillion items with which to illustrate all types of privilege, but want to say GOOD LUCK! What you’re doing is not easy at all. Good luck planting those seeds!

  46. Ooh! If you want a good example of someone being called out on and working through their privilege, highlighting both the importance and difficulty of that, you could check out Chris Crass’ essay “How can I be sexist? I’m an anarchist!” link . I liked it a lot.

  47. I would recommend the white and male privilege knapsacks to start:

    http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf

    http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/

    I have done similar exercises with advertisements with my college freshman classes, and I’d be glad to e-mail you lesson plans if you’d like (vrfarmer@gmail.com). If you want to talk more about gender in advertising as suggested in this thread, Jean Kilbourne and Susan Bordo are both very readable, easy-to-excerpt theorists that would be a great start for that age students.

  49. Try Sarah Haskins’ Target Women series (available on the internet, just Google it). It makes fun of the way women are targeted in advertising. It’s light and funny, but points out the sillyness of certain ad tropes.

  51. I am beginning to think that for some people, calling out others for their supposed privilege is some sort of addiction. You need your fix so bad that you are inventing and projecting new types of privilege just so you can call them out. (Sorry if I’m showing my privilege as a person who doesn’t have this particular addiction!)

  52. I don’t have any specific examples off the topic of my head (and it’s late) but I’d talk about the way the media discusses the clothing choices of women in positions of power, or in sports, but not the men. I remember someone saying Condaleeza Rice didn’t dress very womanly; I’ve seen descriptions of tennis players clothing during reports supposedly on game play; you see women executives interviewed with asides about their blouse bringing out eye color, et cetera.

  53. Vigée: Maybe the poster should list a full personal description, and then only those with equal or greater privilege can answer the call for ideas. *eyeroll*

    Annaleigh: *headdesk* Ay yi yi… I agree with everyone who has explained to you why it makes no sense to call the question asker out. Geez.

    GumbyAnne: I am beginning to think that for some people, calling out others for their supposed privilege is some sort of addiction. You need your fix so bad that you are inventing and projecting new types of privilege just so you can call them out. (Sorry if I’m showing my privilege as a person who doesn’t have this particular addiction!)

    Where the fuck is this garbage coming from? I’ve said nothing racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist or even remotely triggering in this thread. MRA trolls get less backlash here for questioning rape culture, but when I question privilege I get this?

    Even though I didn’t agree with the method the letter-writer was using (BTW, thanks Jadey. I didn’t think of it as crowdsourcing before you mentioned it.) I do think some very good ideas have been mentioned in this thread.

    So I’ll just sit quietly over here like a good little Negro, y’all can keep my name out of your mouths, and we can all go on with the rest of our lives. [/derail]

  54. Shakesville has a Palin Sexism Watch, a Hillary Sexism Watch (referring to Hillary Clinton), a Bachmann Sexism Watch, and a Michele Obama Sexism Watch.

  55. I wonder if all the people who jumped on Angel H. (whose interpretation of the original letter I did not agree with, but which I could understand as coming from an experience where being subjected to that kind of privileged request is not an exceptional occurrence) stopped to think about how jumping all over someone who appears to be jumping all over someone else isn’t really fixing the issue they wanted to but participating in it in a different way.

    @ GumbyAnne

    Your ableist remark about addiction was particular distasteful and reminiscent of the claims that used to be made about black civil rights activists suffering from a mental disorder that made them feel persecuted or charges of hysteria against women who dared to be upset by the status quo.

    Now that’s a teachable moment.

  56. One big one that came to mind is just about every single thing that comes out of Barney Stinson’s mouth (character on How I Met Your Mother). Common themes: getting women drunk to coerce them into sex, beautiful women are dumb by default, manipulating girls who have “daddy issues” into bed, using women and treating them like doormats, lying to women to tell them “what they want to hear” (often an interesting sociological Rorschach) to get them into bed, tactics for getting rid of women once you’ve used up all they have to offer (ie. sex, implied and not my personal views), the Bro Code (now an actual book you can buy), and so on.

    Actually, each of these things gets some playtime (and a serious audience-response laughtrack) in just about every episode.

  57. Angel H.: The assumption that it’s the marginalized person’s job to teach the privileged person about their oppression is an example of privilege.

    Really? I mean REALLY? I am the person who wrote in, and I am simply astounded by this. Did I SAY it was your job to teach me about your oppression? No. Did I ask a bunch of educated feminists for suggestions? Yes. Are those two things related? Um, no.

  58. Jadey:
    I wonder if all the people who jumped on Angel H. (whose interpretation of the original letter I did not agree with, but which I could understand as coming from an experience where being subjected to that kind of privileged request is not an exceptional occurrence) stopped to think about how jumping all over someone who appears to be jumping all over someone else isn’t really fixing the issue they wanted to but participating in it in a different way.

    Ok, perhaps it may not have helped, and I understand what it’s like when you’re trying to talk to someone about their privilege and the refuse to accept the concept or they demand you drop everything to educate them, I’ve experienced that too, however, I have also experienced being called out for a privilege I didn’t even have by a couple of people who were so eager to call out that they didn’t bother to find out if it I was actually neurotypical or not first.

    Vanessa made a good faith, honest request for suggestions and ideas. She accepts privilege as a concept and was asking for examples so that she can educate her students on the subject. It was a pretty good idea to ask us for voluntary input because we all have a constellation of privileges, marginalizations, and perspectives. We all have something worthwhile to contribute.

    Angel “called out” Vanessa without knowing that it was Vanessa or having any idea how she was privileged or not privileged as the anonymous reader. It honestly comes across as “Ah ha! Privilege!” just for the sake of “Ah ha! Privilege!” and nothing else.

  59. By the way Jadey, I do agree with you on GumbyAnne’s fucked up ableist comment on addiction. That certainly had no place here or anywhere.

  60. @ Annaleigh

    Okay, but extending the same good faith to Angel H. and working from the assumption that they misunderstood the original letter (which I gather from the later comment about “crowdsourcing” making sense once it was described that way), I re-read the thread with that other interpretation in mind, and Angel H.’s queries made perfect sense – if vanessa’s letter had been something else altogether, then it makes sense to question it the way Angel did, which was polite, if pointed. No name-calling or shaming involved, except for the offense that was taken by vanessa and others on vanessa’s behalf that she was misinterpreted in the first place.

    The fact that Angel H. misinterpreted the post is unfortunate (and again I am making the big leap that a misinterpretation was occuring – Angel may correct me if this is inaccurate), but I don’t think I’m the only person in this thread who is familiar with what that kind misinterpretation might stem from – the frequent experience of being asked, as a marginalized person, to do someone else’s SJ homework for them. And I would argue that it’s more likely that the more marginalized a person is, the greater the chance that they will make the negative interpretation than the positive one in an ambiguous case, because that’s more reflective of their experiences, so our defensiveness is also potentially a reflection of some degree of privilege. (And I do think that the original letter did not communicate the writer’s intent as well as it could have – the phrase “obviously i can find all this stuff” which Angel singled out took me aback as well at first, until I parsed, optimistically, that the writer was actually exaggerating her capabilities and not actually suggesting that she just wanted other people to do their work, which I still believe is the case).

    Finally, if we want to combat the excesses of call-out culture, we have to lead by example. Angrily calling out people for angrily calling people out is more than unproductive – it’s counter-productive. I’m totally fine with assuming good faith on vanessa’s part, but I don’t see why the same assumption shouldn’t extend to Angel H.

  61. I don’t understand why anyone could think Vanessa was “showing her privilege” with her questions. SHE WAS LOOKING FOR EXAMPLES OF OPPRESSIVE HUMOR, FFS. This wasn’t like, “hey POC, tell me what ‘racism’ means.” It was, “hey social justice community, what shitty jokes have you heard?” Not a privileged question. Jesus H.

  62. I wasn’t going to respond to this derail anymore, but I really didn’t want to leave Jadey hanging like that.

    Here’s the thing: Yes, there was a misunderstanding.

    Here’s the reason: I, unlike most of the other commenters, assumed nothing about the (formerly) anonymous letter-writer. I assumed nothing about Vanessa’s gender or any other marginalizations she may or may not face because there was there was absolutely nothing about her identity in the OP. So when an anonymous person comes onto a Feminist website saying, “Hey, I know I could do this stuff myself, but would you mind?”* I got a little defensive. Was it wrong of me? Probably. But do I deserve all of this hostility? No, I don’t.

    *Paraphrasing.

  63. “But do I deserve all of this hostility? No, I don’t.”

    I agree. I couldn’t quite figure it out, either, until Jadey pointed out the language that had probably caused the misunderstanding. I’d completely read over that part. I’m sorry you got a pile on.

  64. Yeah umm. I wanted to say that I also think that the vitriol directed at angel h is a problem. And I am commenting because I think it’s more important to throw in some more support than to avoid derailing…
    I was excited about this post because I like sharing resources I have, and I like people doing privilege and oppression education. And I was at first confused as to what you meant, angel h, but your second comment I understood a lot better– it sounds like you’re talking about a sense of entitlement, like “I should be able to and deserve to access any resources this space has to offer”; is that right? I read the ask more as “I think I could get some focused responses here and maybe folks would be excited to share so I may as well ask,” but I also understand what I think your take was.
    And I think different people’s interpretations are different because… Intent isn’t magic and context matters? If you’re used to a sense of entitlement coming with questions like that, like, I think you’re allowed to get defensive, y’know? As I think jadey said.
    I guess my reaction to angel h’s first post, which is one I learned from trying to learn about anti-oppression stuff, is to say, “ok maybe I don’t get it or don’t agree, how might my privilege coming into play here?” or something, and is never never anything along the lines of “they must not be an expert in their own oppression.” because, like, I think thats been Implied and I think that’s some bs.
    I’m not sure this post is clear, sorry,I’m a little rushed and garbly.

  65. Angel H.: Here’s the thing: Yes, there was a misunderstanding.

    I’m sorry for jumping on your case, in this case. I interpreted Vanessa’s question as a “multiple heads thinking about this are better than one” from the beginning, and it didn’t come across as entitlement on her part to me, but clearly that was not the case for you.

    As I told Jadey, I’ve been on the receiving end of an unfair callout before, where I was piled on for concerns I had about something, and accused of showing my privilege when in actuality, I actually have that marginalization in question and am having to make some of the decisions related to what I was concerned about. After I explained to those people that no, I was not neurotypical, and yes I had personal experience with the issue, they didn’t even bother to acknowledge me at all after that, as if I lost all use or value to them at the point because there was nothing to call me out on anymore with regards to that discussion. I felt even more marginalized and I felt silenced and disregarded.

    So that probably colors how I perceived your reaction to Vanessa.

    I’m sorry I made you feel piled on.

  66. Angel H, I for one am sorry I was sarcastic with you. I just hate the idea that feministe would become a place where people aren’t even allowed to ask for recommendations or suggestions in good faith without being immediately shut down and accused of ignoring their privilege. Especially when I do think there is a distinction between what the poster was doing and the phenomena of privileged people demanding to be educated.

    I think this post has turned into a valuable resource for the entire community, with all of the links and suggestions collected into one place. So while I’m sorry for my part in the pile-on, I do understand why there would be push-back when a poster who is asking about a topic relevant to this forum, and in good faith, is almost immediately told that the very act of asking that question should be off limits.

  67. Vigée:
    Angel H, I for one am sorry I was sarcastic with you.I just hate the idea that feministe would become a place where people aren’t even allowed to ask for recommendations or suggestions in good faith without being immediately shut down and accused of ignoring their privilege.Especially when I do think there is a distinction between what the poster was doing and the phenomena of privileged people demanding to be educated.

    I think this post has turned into a valuable resource for the entire community, with all of the links and suggestions collected into one place.So while I’m sorry for my part in the pile-on, I do understand why there would be push-back when a poster who is asking about a topic relevant to this forum, and in good faith, is almost immediately told that the very act of asking that question should be off limits.

    Well said, Vigee, and I agree.

  68. Jadey, IrishUp, and max: Thank you so much for your support.

    Annaleigh and Vigée: I truly appreciate the apologies. And thank you so much for taking the time out to elaborate on your side of things. Annaleigh, I’m sorry you felt your experiences were silenced in the past, and Vigée, I understand your point now. Thank you.

    That being said, I would also like to apologize for Vanessa for jumping the gun. If you’re still looking for resources, check out Racebending.com, Women in Refrigerators, and this recent post on how women were banned from attending a LAN party because of the sexist remarks made by men.

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