But what does the future hold for a radical feminist media-critical project, once its author realizes that exposure to this propaganda itself, for any reason — even to critique it — is actually a harmful cultural practice that’s best avoided?

We previously discussed a study conducted by researcher Ann Becker (the “Fiji study“) where television programming was “naturally” introduced into a population for the first time, and within 3 short years, (between 1995-1998) nearly 70% of the female population were dieting to lose weight, and nearly 75% “felt too fat.”  A critical observer, after reading the study and its methodology would notice that this gynocidal, misogynistic effect was surely anticipated: why else would American researchers — well-versed in the effects of media exposure themselves — have swooped into the area just weeks after television was introduced to make their baseline observations, and come back 3 years later to see what had changed?

The researchers knew what was going to happen, and importantly, they did nothing to stop it.  If gynocide were taken as seriously as other genocides, and if parallels were made between destroying the health and lives of girls and women and destroying the health and lives of human beings, this method of data collection would be seen as problematic, and similar to studying the known-effects of politicized torture on an oppressed people in real time, as it’s happening, instead of activating against it.

And indeed, American researchers have done this before — in the Tuskegee experiment, between 1932 and 1972, researchers observed the progress of syphilis in 399 rural American black men who had contracted the disease elsewhere, but who were never told they had syphilis and were never treated for it.  The differences in the public and academic perception of these experiments are obvious: the Tuskegee experiment is an example of a harmful practice stemming from racism and classism against poor black men (and necrophilia) and the experiments are now an embarrassing blight on medical science, demonstrating the reprehensible ethical shortcoming in obtaining data via observing the destruction of non-consenting human subjects producing tainted “research” from which legal and ethical changes were rightly forthcoming.

Meanwhile, the Fiji study — experimenting on non-American black girls and women, and relatively recently at that — is seen and treated as something else entirely.

In fact, media exposure for girls and women functions as politicized torture from which there are known negative outcomes for the victims that are very serious indeed — we know this, and we have known this for a long time.  Interestingly, unlike the Tuskegee experiment, where the progression of a disease-state functioned as the politicized torture of an oppressed group, in the case of media exposure, it is politicized torture that functions as politicized torture — media imagery does not exist outside its political purpose and function.  In other words, unlike a disease-state which would exist regardless of oppressive social structures or unethical researchers being jerks, patriarchal media does not exist in nature and has no other function but to harm and politically oppress girls and women and to support male power.

Indeed, because it is not a natural process or a disease-state, observing the effects of media exposure is more akin to and as scientifically valid as objectively “observing” non-medicalized torture of political prisoners — causing pain and damage for the sake of causing pain and damage, with absolutely no pretense made, for example of its medical or scientific value — than it is akin to Tuskegee or even the medical or quasi-medical experiments of the Nazis who tested, for example, the effects of extreme heat and cold, albeit (obviously) in an unethical and politically oppressive way.  Like torturing political prisoners for the sake of physically, psychologically and politically damaging them, exposing girls and women to media imagery (or objectively observing it without intervening) should be dispositively adjudged to be unethical on its face, but of course it generally isn’t.

Which brings us to the task at hand: identifying and examining the intent and effect of media imagery to further feminist understanding of patriarchy and oppressive social structures that benefit men at women’s expense — with the endgame being women’s liberation from male dominance.

If media imagery really does function as politicized torture — and I think there is excellent evidence that it does — then it is harmful and serves its political purpose well whenever girls and women are exposed to it.  There is no safe level of exposure, and no way to “observe” it objectively without being harmed by it — so a project such as Radfem-ological Images might serve its critical purpose, but it also serves another purpose, which is to further expose its audience to harmful political propaganda that is actually damaging to girls and women in real time.

Radical feminists have long struggled with this in fact, and at one point a deliberate decision was made, for example in anti-pornography work, to show women actual pornographic imagery in order that women would really know what we were up against — what men were producing and how they imagined and viewed us, and what they were doing *to us* in the pornography industry.  The idea was that what men are doing is so awful, so brutal and so woman-hating that it is literally incomprehensible and unimaginable to most women, who simply do not imagine the same things men imagine, for whatever reason.  The idea was to take the blinders off, so that we could understand men for what they are and what they do, and male culture for what it is and what it does.

The idea was to get real about men, and to know the truth about women’s lives and the truth about what men do to us.  So now that we know, what do we do with that knowledge?  Are we just supposed to keep viewing this imagery endlessly, even though we know what it does and (therefore) what it’s for?  Or is there an actual point to all of this that goes beyond “understanding” it intellectually — where we start to implement what we know, and make real changes in our lives and in the lives of other girls and women?

That is the question isn’t it?  To take radical feminist thought to its logical ends is to make the leap from radical feminism to female separatism, if not in practice (yet) then in theory.  Isn’t it?  In the case of critically examining media exposure, our logical ends is to understand that there is no safe way to interact with media imagery as it currently stands, and very little chance that we will be able to successfully change the imagery in a fundamental way; in fact it would be reasonable to conclude that despite our best efforts, the gynocidal intent and effect of media imagery has gotten worse, not better — for example, both pornography and advertising have become increasingly violent and degrading over time.

We can and should thank the women who came before for proving, with their female blood, sweat and tears, that reforming the patriarchal media so that it does not harm girls and women cannot be done, or that it is so unlikely to be successful as to be an unreasonable goal — and then respect their contributions (and our own) by using this knowledge constructively.

Under patriarchy, “constructively” means grounded in reality (unwinding and discarding reversals, including unclear and wishful thinking about boys and men) and acting in a way that is supportive of girls and women, and/or undermining to male power.  In the case of media imagery, because exposure actually, actively harms us, including traumatizing us which creates known chemical and physical changes in the mind and body including trauma-bonding us to men, reducing exposure rather than viewing it with a critical eye will likely move us toward success and will be endemic to our female-only safe space.

Instead of engaging in media criticism, even radical feminist media criticism, it might be more constructive to turn off the TV; at the very least, now that we understand how and why *men* use this imagery, we could spend that time examining how and why girls and women voluntarily use politicized torture as recreation, or as relatively-benign material with which to unwind after an average day.  Now that’s interesting, isn’t it?

Please see our “About,” “Why Radfem?” and “The Gears” pages for additional information about this project.

Common themes represented here:

Joke’s on women.  Pigs humiliating women.  Literally everyone — all humans (men of all races) and even some animals — are better and smarter than women, because women are the worst and stupidest.  Har!

Male bonding over misogyny.  Men of all races can bond over their shared hatred of and contempt for women, and by mocking, humiliating and dominating women.

Reversal.  Implying that women are more stupid and more sexually aggressive than men is a reversal of reality.

Please see our “About,” “Why Radfem?” and “The Gears” pages for additional information about this project.

Common themes represented here:

Reversal.  Whenever we see reporting on “natural disasters” there are references made to “the wrath of mother nature” and human male traits such as violence, mercilessness, rage/anger or revenge are projected onto nature uncritically.  In reality, nature is value-neutral and does not have intent or malicious intent, but men constantly pretend otherwise, and in the case of all natural disasters, much of the harm is due not to the storm or geological event itself but to failures of (men’s) structures and infrastructures that follow.  Importantly, much is often made of men or male technology “saving lives” before, during and in the aftermath of these disasters, when in reality, without men’s negligence, malice, incompetence and greed, there would not be nearly as many people in harm’s way — victims to be rescued — in the first place.

As we can plainly see with our own eyes in all media coverage of disaster events — or from experiencing them firsthand — but which is never adequately or actually addressed, buildings and transportation hubs are built too close to the sea, or with cheap or shoddy materials which are not intended to protect or preserve life but to maximize profit for the property owners and builders; and male-devised and male-run corporations, quasi-governmental agencies and government-run utilities and social safety nets are revealed to be flimsy facades when “put to the test” or in other words, when they are called upon to do exactly what they are supposed to do during foreseeable periods of increased demand.  Men’s responsibility for this harm to life and property is never adequately addressed in media coverage of these disaster events, and the specifically manmade destruction is made to seem to naturally flow from the natural event when it doesn’t.  These media images have the intent and effect of normalizing men’s greed, incompetence and the fact that they routinely put women and children in harm’s way on purpose, and the ways this supports male power — including economic power — and increases female vulnerability, including destroying women’s gynergy when our homes and our children are destroyed.  See also Fetishize female vulnerability; Normalize abuse/neglect; Harm reduction/refusal to name the agent.

Parts 2-8 of this documentary are available on Youtube.

Footage of the 2011 tsunami devastating the northeast coast of Japan, with similar results and implications:

Part 1 of a documentary on that disaster here (the rest is available on Youtube):

Please see our “About,” “Why Radfem?” and “The Gears” pages for additional information about this project.

Common themes represented here:

Normalize abuse/neglect.  Take a dangerous (and largely unnecessary) pharmaceutical and then almost certainly expose women and children to it, even though the drug is not indicated for women or children and in fact is known to cause dangerous side effects for them.  Take exposed women and children to a doctor when the signs of exposure can no longer be denied, e.g. signs of early puberty in a child.  Signs of early puberty in a child.  SIGNS OF EARLY PUBERTY IN A CHILD.  See also Male entitlement.  Men are entitled to place others in harm’s way, especially if it benefits the man (but also just for funzies, that’s ok too).  If it’s beneficial to a man, it survives a cost-benefit analysis no matter what the cost to women and children.  See also Joke’s on women.  How’s that new beard and acne going?  Har.  See also Support patriarchal institutions (medicine/religion/law).  Pathologize “low testosterone” in men as if it’s a disease state, and put billions into the coffers of medical providers, medical research and Big Pharma.  Then, when the male patient (or his wife and kids!) experiences one of the known negative outcomes, (also known as “possible side effects”) dood gets a lawyer and assuming he wins, puts the lawyer’s kids through college with exorbitant legal fees.  Unfortunately however, as a patient and consumer of dangerous pharmaceuticals, what he will never get is his (wife and kids’) lives and health back.  Win?

Reversal.  Accidentally-on-purpose expose the people you allegedly love to dangerous pharmaceuticals that carry serious side-effects known negative outcomes.  Frame/present these exposures similarly to the way common side-effects of medications are framed/presented, when in reality it’s not an issue of a side-effect at all, but of men deliberately polluting their living and working environments and purposely placing other people (not yourself, as in the case of a true side-effect) in harm’s way.  Also, are we very sure that “low testosterone” in men is a bad thing?  Bad how/says who?

More (official) AndroGel information here.

*Comments open due to extreme egregiousness of this product and the propagandizing effect of the ad campaign, especially “normalize abuse/neglect.”  And especially “reversal” too.  FFS.

–image by FCM. Click on image to visit SOR.

Please see our “About,” “Why Radfem?” and “The Gears” pages for additional information about this project.

Women’s culture/positive images.  Women’s culture, at the moment, includes women’s personal and political responses to what men do to us.  On December 14, 2012 a man heavily armed with multiple guns murdered his mother, then broke into a Connecticut elementary school and shot to death 20 children and 6 adult women.  According to news reports of the school shooting, all but 2 of the deceased — both children — died at the scene.  Those two were taken to the hospital and declared dead there.  All the children were 6 and 7 years old at the time.  Information is surfacing about the heroic actions of the women at the school.

Considering that we are relying on the patriarchal propaganda machine to provide the information, none of us will likely ever be told the truth or the whole truth of either the women’s actions or the man’s.  It is likely that either immediately or over time, the women’s bravery will be reversed, downplayed, and erased, while the man’s violence and the violence of men as a sexual class will be reversed, downplayed and erased.

Name the agent.  Male violence.

See also Femicide; Harm reduction/refusal to name the agent; Mansplaining/Women’s perspective is wrong; Necrophilia; Normalize abuse/neglect; Reversal.

Please see our “About,” “Why Radfem?” and “The Gears” pages for additional information about this project.

Common themes represented here:

Male entitlement.  This is what male entitlement looks like!  An entire series on the Investigation Discovery channel dedicated to the phenomenon of men lying to and conning women in order to obtain and maintain access to women’s unpaid sexual, domestic and reproductive services.  There are even a couple of episodes on female conmen (!) because equality.  But it doesn’t exactly mean the same thing when women lie to and “con” men, now does it?

Men lie to and con women all the time, because men — being born into the privileged oppressor class — are entitled to the unpaid sexual, domestic and reproductive services of women and by god they will get what they deserve.  Men lie to and con women within the context of sexual and intimate relationships because the point for men of these relationships is gaining and maintaining access to women’s services; the point for men is notably *not* to be good or quality partners to women.  Men lying to and conning women is so common that it’s often joked about and minimized, even though (or because) it is the source of tremendous female suffering and endangers women’s financial security and safety, and causes incalculable anxiety, stress and emotional, mental and psychic pain.  Criminal liability may even attach to the woman if he has included her in his criminal enterprises.  See also Joke’s on Women.  Because this is all very funny isn’t it?  Har.  See also Woman as “useful object”.

Normalize abuse/neglect.  Focusing on extreme examples of men lying and conning women — and those offenses for which the men are caught — serves to normalize lesser or unknown offenses which almost all men perpetrate on their female partners at some point within the context of the het partnership, due to male entitlement.  See also PIV-centric narrative — Rape and rape culture.  Lying to obtain women’s consent to sexual intercourse is rape.

Interestingly, the woman depicted in the ad hadn’t even consented been asked for her permission or given it to have her image used this way — she is now suing the company for using her likeness and for placing her in the center of this controversy.

But as usual, even though this extraordinarily rapey ad and everyone responsible for it deserves to be blasted for it, the mainstream response does not go nearly far enough, or into radical feminist territory at all.  For example, what if we were to say that all media imagery depicting drug and alcohol use always contributes to rape and rape culture no matter how tastefully done, because drugs and alcohol reduce or remove women’s legal capacity to consent to intercourse?

Women and feminists have largely supported temperance movements around the world not because women were prudes, but because men were and are notoriously bad drunks and abuse, rape and otherwise destroy the lives of girls and women when men drink.  Men spend their family’s income — and their child support payments — on booze and other vices constantly, depriving women and children of basic needs such as food and shelter.  And women don’t like that.  Men also use much of their discretionary income to abuse economically vulnerable women by purchasing prostituted women, strippers, and “dating” women who are then indebted to the men and coerced into having unwanted sex, or outright raped.  Women have clear and valid reasons to support temperance, and to not support anyone drinking, including themselves — if it means that men wouldn’t have access to alcohol.  It’s not that the women themselves don’t necessarily like or want to drink.  Women are willing to give up their own “rights” as it were, to make the world a better and safer place for themselves and for all girls and women and to place much-needed social controls on men who cannot or will not stop abusing us.

This ad is pretty “rapey” too, and has been criticized on the internets somewhere…

Furthermore, women have every reason in the world to oppose drugs and alcohol because they are used against women to reduce our “inhibitions” and our known, legitimate personal and political resistance to unwanted intercourse — trolling bars and plying women with booze is the most widely-utilized well-known date-rape drug globally, but no one ever says it, or not quite.  If male-centric sexuality were so pleasurable and positive for women, would we have “inhibitions” to it at all?  Would men need to get women drunk, or would women’s magazines encourage overstressed housewives to have that glass of wine in the evening, so that women would more readily buy what men are selling — that intercourse is sex, and that we should do it?  No — again, this implies that women are prudish and backwards, and need to be enticed to seek out pleasure and to engage in behavior that serves our interests.

What if we said this ad contributes to rape culture too, because it depicts alcohol and (hetero)sexuality in the same frame?

In reality, the opposite is true.  Women who are in full possession of our faculties know what’s pleasurable for us, and know what’s in our best interests, and we act on this knowledge — often, by not having intercourse with men, or by being very selective about it, or timing it just right, or whatever.  We might even say “no” to intercourse because we know the man is only going to be willing or able to do it once, and that’s not good enough — if we are going to engage in intercourse at all, it might be in women’s best interests to engage in it a lot.  If we are going to be put at risk for unwanted pregnancy, disease, and the rest, why not get the maximum pleasure by having frequent intercourse, assuming it’s a pleasurable act at all?  None of this, of course, is at all compatible with men’s concept of “sex” or their concept of “women’s sexuality,” or with what men are hoping to achieve by plying women with alcohol in bars, or in our own living rooms.

But beyond even that appears to be this: as long as we frame “rape” in terms of “consent” anything that reduces a woman’s capacity to consent is, in fact, contributing to rape culture.  Isn’t it?  Even a little bit of alcohol or mind-altering drugs reduces women’s legal capacity to consent to sex.  In this context of reduced (or non-existent) capacity, “sexuality” should go out the window, lest women be placed at increasing risk of rape — the risk increasing as her capacity decreases — but it never does.  “Sexuality” is always there, predatory men are always there, waiting, as women’s capacity to consent withers and shrinks to nothingness.

This ad depicts rape culture too, because alcohol reduces capacity to consent. If you can rebut that statement using an actual reason, please do so below.

Drug and alcohol culture also serves to fetishize women’s vulnerability, which is another expression of rape culture and of patriarchal values  –  vulnerable, crippled and otherwise incapacitated women are seen in a positive light (sexualized) because hobbling women supports relative male power.

In this context of women’s nonconsent, “sex” does not and indeed cannot exist — only rape is left, where “sexuality” is mixed with drugs and alcohol.  If sex and rape were so different, everyone would see this as a problem — so what does it mean that no one thinks it is, and that this very obvious dynamic/connection between drugs and alcohol, reduced-capacity to consent (and rape) is, in reality, completely invisible or ignored?

Please feel free to comment below. Comments on “Featured Posts” — like this one — will remain open for three days, and then closed.

“Cis Privilege” — Image by TENCGP. Click on image to visit TENCGP on Tumblr.

Please see our “About,” “Why Radfem?” and “The Gears” pages for additional information about this project.

Women’s culture/positive images.  The artwork on this new Tumblr is amazing and woman-friendly.  A wonderful and noticeable departure from the woman-hating (and often terrible artwork, incidentally) on mainstream sites, galleries and museums everywhere.  It’s tempting to ask “more, please” and to want to drain the artist dry because we are so desperate and thirsty for these images and representations, (isn’t it?) but being supportive of women artists — and building our galleries and archives — requires better of us.  Well done, TENCGP.  Thank you for your vision and your work.

Please see our “About,” “Why Radfem?” and “The Gears” pages for additional information about this project.

Common themes represented here:

Joke’s on women.  “They know I can see them, right?”  “Yeah, they don’t care.”  Har.  Also, hey straight ladies — these disgusting, entitled men are your only options if you want to have sex, get married, or have babies.  And these are the “Good Ones” TM compared to all the other males out there!  Isn’t that funny?

Male entitlement.  Fashionable clothes, good jobs, leisure time, satisfying relationships, and sexual access to women.  Check, check, check, check, and check.

Male bonding over misogyny.  “That color doesn’t exist in nature.”  Feelings of revulsion for and superiority over a woman who is attempting to adhere to fuckability mandates but got something wrong, as women are wont to do since fuckability mandates are often contradictory and impossible to fulfill.  Also, if her beauty product didn’t work right, whose fault is that really?  She didn’t design, manufacture and distribute the product — she just shelled out her hard earned cash and believed what it said on the tin, which is often (men’s) lies.

PIV-centric narrative — Rape and rape culture.  Drugs and alcohol.

Reversal.  From the YouTube description:

Men at Work is a brazen new original comedy about four hip, young professionals set to take on New York and live life “Full Steam” – ahead just like the name of the magazine that they work for. They follow the “boys will be boys” mantra of single, 30-somethings navigating work, friendship, and women.

Brazen, new and original?  Or shameful, ancient and banal?  You decide.

Please see our “About,” “Why Radfem?” and “The Gears” pages for additional information about this project.

Women’s culture/positive images.  Aaahhhhh.    There are some places left that are not made in men’s image by men, and do not reflect male values and misogyny.

These photographs are by a woman named Rezzan.  From her deviantart page:

My Dear friends,
I m so greatfull for ur interest. I saved many flowers for my journal.it looks many of you need to cheer up. Many friends sent yellow flowers as their best)
I would like to share them here with other friends. I hope some friends will plant somethings too and we will see their photos soon)
İt is really good to interest with soil and plant somethings. it can be a flower or a vegetable…to see first leaf, to talk with sapling ( trust me it works cos they need carbondioxide day time) to see thier firts blossom…it is like to see as a child first tooth, firts steps or firts talk. İt can make u even so happy to get attention with their photos
it is more cheap than a psychiatrist, isnt it?
I already planted many things in pots.Hopily my son will give them some water while I m away for my holiday cos my balcony as warm as the hell!

Radfem-ological Images previously featured Rezzan’s work here.