Girl Shaming

[Kyle]

So sexism is everywhere. One of my pet peeves is the memes that float around on social media which try to shame millennials for "always having their noses in their screens" or being obsessed with selfies and social media. Inevitably, the meme shows a picture of high-school aged girls. The message is more insidious than just "these dumb kids today"-- it's actually a message of "these kids act like a bunch of dumb girls." It's terrible, but I also think that sexism is so ingrained in our society that most of the people that post these things don't even realize why or how they are being sexist.

[Phoebe]

I feel bad for again being the crabby apple, but I think it's much more complicated than this, and is not only about criticizing girls in a sexist way. However, I have often seen this very thing - mockery directed only at girls for being selfie obsessed or social media/phone obsessed - perpetrated by people who judge others superficially on appearances, care a lot about the attractiveness of people they date, and mock people they consider unattractive. So... I'll leave it at that for now until I can discuss the other parts adequately.

[Kyle]

I hear what you're saying, and I'm pointing out this one aspect of sexism that I find insidious. Obviously there's a thousand other ways it is evidenced. I was just pointing out this one.

[Phoebe]

I am probably explaining this poorly, but the gist is that sometimes it's a good thing to mock both the appearance obsession and the screens/social media obsession. Sometimes these things are funny in a way that's not about girls, but about all of us who are using a screen right at the moment we see the thing making fun of us for using the screen. We know social media can be powerful and revolutionary, but most of us aren't using it that way most of the time, so there's humor in it.

Long story short on the other aspect: mockery of appearance - obsession can be a very useful antidote to both insecurity and vanity. I still feel the pull of this crap: even in my 40s I sometimes struggle to keep legit concerns about losing weight for health reasons separate from illegitimate despair that I look like a disgusting troll. It bugs me that this ever bugs me. But I escaped mostly unscathed from the problem - which was always real even before it manifested in selfie culture, which is also real - because my mom didn't concern herself much with appearances and my dad made fun of me relentlessly pretty much every time I gazed in a mirror. This was an unusually harsh method that wouldn't work on everyone, but it did good things for me. In general, that's how I feel about the mockery of selfie obsessions and the whole appearances game. Ridicule of compliance with sexism can be a tool against the sexism, not just a further perpetuation of it.

[Kyle]

I disagree that mockery of an undesired trait is a good way to "train" someone to stop displaying that trait or behavior. I understand it may be effective, but so is physical pain. I think there's better ways to handle it- at least if we're talking about how I 'd treat my kids.

With respect to my original point, this is typical of the meme I'm referencing:



In other words: "Don't be a vapid girl that stares into your phone. Experience the world."

[Mike]

I completely agree with you, Kyle. And to paraphrase your main point in a demonstration of understanding:

People say, "This generation is [something negative] because they spend too much time on their phones." But the pictures they use to illustrate "this generation" are overwhelmingly of girls on phones.

[Zen]

Yes, the picture may be sexist, but I don't think the message is meant to be. I've also seen things about parents texting each other or texting their children from different rooms in their house that are basically the same thing. Or pictures of a mixed-sex couple sitting next to each other on their phones, with the implication that they are texting each other being made by an observer. So the social criticism isn't what is sexist, it is the choice of image.

[Mike]

That's the point. No, the message itself isn't sexist (wrong-headed, for sure, but not sexist), but the implementation of it IS. This is about the subtle sexism behind so much of our society... not about whether millennials are destroying our culture or whether phones are a bad thing.

[Phoebe]

The picture above is a perfect example of why it's complicated. I have "liked" that exact picture on Facebook, and here's why: it was posted by someone who for the last several months has been, first, trying to get people to VOTE instead of vaguely complaining about things and assuming that Hillary or other local candidates were going to get elected and that everything was going to be okay, and second, trying to understand why so many young white women would vote for Trump. She has every possible reason to find the grim humor in all of this. And by the way, I don't even think that's a quote from Orwell, so if anything is offensive about it, it's that.

So yeah, we can talk about whether it's acceptable generally to blame girls more for being on social media when boys are doing the same sorts of mindless and non-engaged activities. We can debate whether it's reasonable to criticize younger people more, given that old people are sitting around watching TV or using the internet just as much too. And we can debate even whether the internet or social media is a greater tool for social justice and political activity than doing other kinds of things. I think it's a useful tool for that purpose, but it has nothing on physically getting your hands on people and taking them to the polls, or to register to vote, or even phoning them up and reminding them to do this.

So this is why I'm saying it's a bit more complicated than saying every meme like this is sexist.

[Phoebe]

[Kyle]

[Kyle]

[Zen]

[Phoebe]

[Kyle]

[Phoebe]

Actually the written message is annoying me because I have no evidence Orwell ever wrote that - something like that, maybe, but not a quote. Anyway, I'm not arguing the image is NOT sexist; I'm arguing that it's complicated, because in at least one case I've seen, it definitely wasn't. The person who posted it is trying to get people engaged in real political action, and she has been frustrated in particular by the effects of low voter turnouts, weak engagement, and white women who inexplicably voted for Trump. When this person posts the meme, she has a good reason, including when the picture only shows women.

I might well have a problem with a meme showing young black men with guns, but if the same person posted it for a good reason because she was trying to address some issue with community violence, I might well not have a problem with it. You seem to think the picture itself is inherently critical of girls in a way that always implies sexism. But what if the very thing you want to do is criticize this behavior, and you have a good reason to do that? I just don't see the picture itself as inherently sexist against girls. It could be used that way, absolutely.

[Kyle]

I get what you're saying. And you're right that in those limited cases, there's no intent for sexism if it's important to the message.

But also- none of the people on FB that I saw meant that.

[bralbovsky]

The one picture isn't the problem, like the one guy who takes a memento from the volcano. It's not the first time you say "You don't want to be fat do you?" It's the accretion of many images, let's agree 'most,' that begins to establish a linkage between the image and the message, between the scolding and the body image. Pavlov's experiment required many bells, but once it sank in, it was permanent.

There's a somewhat pedantic video called "Killing Us Softly," which is about images and advertising, especially the images of girls and women. These images become the water in which we swim. They establish and reinforce norms in such a way that you get points for being 'evolved' when you are looking at your kid's choice for prom date. If these norms weren't established, we wouldn't even notice.

The point about the picture is that it carries two negative messages: One (intended) that millennials aren't paying attention (Reference several letters from Rome near BCE for similar sentiments), the second (automatic) attaches to that the lack of seriousness and superficiality which have already been connected to the idea/symbol of a group of girls by years of media conditioning. It creates a cognitive vortex that's difficult to escape.

We don't notice because we accept the paradigm.
Just because we notice other issues first, doesn't mean it's not a problem.

[El Jefe]

[Zen]