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MS.CELLANEOUS
-What?
-Just the Facts
-Word: Bi
-Women to Watch |
Diary
of a Slam Poet
National Poetry Slam champion and outspoken feminist shares
a year of her life on the road. By Alix Olson |
AD
SAVVY
In these two articles, we explore some of the ways ads
affect us.
Hooked on
Advertising
Cultural critic Jean Kilbourne takes on ads offers new
insight into the not-so-obvious messages lurking behind
the luster. By Clea Simon
Consuming Passions
Today's advertising execs and their big- business clients
are betting that consumers will buy products made by companies
that support social causes. Are the ads just talk, or
is there substance behind the slogans? By Dan Bischoff
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| Book Reviews
On the Ms.
bookshelf
Saturday's
Child by Robin Morgan
The
Crimson Edge: Older Women Writing (Volume Two)
by Sondra Zeidenstein
Gun
Women by Mary Zeiss Stange and Carol K. Oyster
Her
Way by Paula Kamen
Feminism
is for Everybody by bell hooks
Black,
White and Jewish by Rebecca Walker
Prodigal
Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
EDITOR'S
PAGE
by Marcia Ann Gillespie
YOUR
HEALTH:
-The Latest on Tamoxifen
-Healthnotes
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|
NEWS:
-In Poland, Feminism Is the News
-The Right's Stealth Tactics
-Gloria Steinem's Wedding Day
- Newsmaker: Aloisea Inyumba
- What Will Mexico's New Government Mean for Women?
- Opinion: Blaming the Messenger
- Clippings
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UPPITY
WOMEN:
Elouise Cobell Takes on the Feds
FIRST
PERSON:
Aunt Jemima in the Mirror
TECHNO.FEM:
What's a Hacktivist?
SHE
SAYS:
The Body Shop's Anita Roddick
ARTS:
Shirin Neshat Sees Beyond the Veil
COLUMNS
by Daisy Hernandez, Patricia Smith, and Gloria Steinem
NO
COMMENT
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SEX
AND POWER:
Is
the feminist movement stuck in mid-revolution? According
to this well-known lawyer and activist the answer is
yes. Now it's time to move on and harness our power.
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"The
truth is that there's no way not to be influenced by
advertising," asserts Kilbourne, whose lectures have
been documented in several films, most notably the three
Killing Us Softly documentaries, the first two
made in 1979 and 1987 by Cambridge Documentary Films
and the most recent made in 2000 by the Media Education
Foundation. And in 1999, after years of rejection letters
from publishers afraid of printing criticism of the
advertising industry, Kilbourne published the book Deadly
Persuasion (Simon & Schuster), which was rereleased
by the same publisher this November with the new name
Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way
We Think and Feel. With the book and the new film,
Kilbourne is now reaching out beyond her previous audience
of primarily college students to bring her message to
the masses. Broadening her audience is imperative if
we're going to counter the negative impact of advertising
says Susan Faludi, author of the the feminist classic
Backlash. "Kilbourne's work is pioneering and crucial
to the dialogue of one of the most underexplored yet
most powerful realms of American culture," comments
Faludi.
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GLAMOURIZING
VIOLENCE
Ad
after ad implies that girls and women don't really
mean "no" when they say it, that women are only
teasing when they resist men's advances. This perfume
ad, running in several teen magazines, features
a very young woman, with eyes blackened by makeup
or perhaps something else, and the copy, "Apply
generously to your neck so he can smell the scent
as you shake your head 'no.'" In other words, he'll
understand that you don't really mean it and he
can respond to the scent like any other animal.
-Jean Kilbourne |
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| Kilbourne
and I leaf through a fat issue of Vogue, paying
particular attention to the ads, and talk about advertising
and addictions. We come across an ad proclaiming "Strength
isn't always a shout." The woman in the picture is beautifully
made up, but her mouth is closed. "That's the message
women get all the time, you know, be strong but don't
speak up too much, don't be too loud. Don't." And then
there's food-advertising encourages women to substitute
eating for love, Kilbourne maintains, even while showing
us images of impossibly thin women. "You eat partly to
numb the pain you feel because you're in a miserable relationship,"
she says, pointing to a chocolate ad in which a woman
appears to float into a romantic fantasy with just one
bite. "But it also becomes the substitute for a relationship.
There's tremendous cynicism in the culture about relationships,"
she says. Many marriages fail. She herself is divorced.
"So it's very seductive to think that the things in our
lives will be permanent. The advertisers have played upon
that. But what's new is that it's not the case anymore
that if you buy the car, you get the woman. It's if you
buy the car, you don't need the woman." CONTINUE>>
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