Category: equality

cycling · equality · fitness · Guest Post · racing · traveling

Bicycle Racing is Expensive! (Guest Post)

rachelvmck3 Comments

Hi there! This is my first fitisafeministissue post, so let me introduce myself. My name’s Rachel. I’m also a Canadian philosopher (who lives and works in the US), a feminist, and a life-long competitive athlete. My primary competitive sport used to be badminton, but since moving to Charleston, South Carolina, I’ve taken to bike racing. In my first season, I won the NC/SC combined state championship, along with a bunch of other regional races. I took to bike racing like a fish to water, one could say.

I have a few big goals. First, I’m aspiring to a professional cycling contract. Now, I won’t quit my day job! Hardly! Women’s professional cycling doesn’t pay well—if it pays at all!  Second, I want to win the 2017 Canadian Road and Criterium Championships (I’ll happily substitute an ‘or’ for the ‘and’). Third, I want to represent Canada at the 2020 Olympics.

But here’s the rub: bike racing ain’t cheap. I don’t think that’s really a surprise to anyone, but the costs don’t stop at our bikes. There’s maintenance costs (tires, tubes, chains, brake pads—although, as someone who likes to go fast, I try not to brake much!), race entry fees, travel costs (food, gas, rental cars, hotels—if one is lucky, one can arrange a ‘homestay’ where a family graciously offers room and board, or at least a couch to surf), clothing, and replacement costs for broken equipment when (not if, when) we crash. And that’s just for racing: there are also training costs, such as monthly coaching fees, training camps, and so on. These costs add up, and that’s after the ‘start up’ costs of a race-quality bike, helmet, shoes, wheels, and so on. I added it up my annual costs for a full race schedule, it’s $6000-9000 (USD). Per year.

Like I said, it ain’t cheap. As an amateur cyclist, nearly all of those costs fall on my shoulders. Sure, I’m on a local racing team, but that involves only a partial reimbursement of clothing costs (up to $265, which doesn’t go very far) and race entry fees (up to $400, where a single week-long series costs that much). We receive free or reduced-cost maintenance, as well as equipment discounts, by the local bike shop that sponsors us. But there’s no cash. There’s no free gear (except four team water bottles—don’t get me wrong, I enjoy them!). So it’s hard to get by.

You might wonder: Rachel, you win lots of races, can’t you just pay for your trips from the race payouts? Well, women certainly can’t. Payouts for women’s fields are typically a tiny fraction of men’s races—quite often 10-20%. We are a long way from equality. There’s a great documentary by Kathryn Bertine on this: Half the Road. Also, since our fields are often much smaller, we may not make the ‘field minimum’ for a full payout, and they may cut our payouts in half. And we don’t know whether the field will meet the minimum generally until we toe the line for the start. In some cases, I’ve been in big races where we didn’t meet the field minimum, so they cut our payouts by 50%. OK, I think that sucks (because if you want to grow women’s cycling, then offering good payouts is a great way to attract more racers next time), but at least that was on the race flyer. But they went one step further: they also cut the number of places paid out by half, which effectively reduced the total race payouts for the women field by 75%. If a race costs ~$40 to enter, women’s payouts are often only 2-3x the race entry fee: $80-120. And that’s if you win. Payouts for second or worse often barely cover the race entry fee (usually payouts off the podium don’t cover the entry fee).

Valerie Leggett (Instagram: @valeriedleggett)A
Valerie Leggett (Instagram: @valeriedleggett)A

In the top fields, populated by the best pro teams, the winner might make $1000, but it’s extremely difficult to win those races as a solo amateur (I’m generally the only women from my team in any given race). The race I won last weekend, for example, was an exception in that for a $30 race entry, the women’s payout was $100. I don’t own a car, so I have to arrange rides (which is extremely difficult when I’m the only woman racing from my team, because that means arranging with guys who might race at radically different times from me), or rent a car. The average rental costs about $35 (by going through a discount site), plus $40-60 in gas (depending on how far the race is), and the race entry fee. My expenses for that race were $27 in gas, $33 in race entry, $35 for the rental car: $95. Winning the race brought in $100. So include post-race lunch, and it’s a wash.

That’s a GOOD race situation. It was a close race (3hr drive), with a relatively decent payout, and I won. Most races don’t even come close to covering expenses, especially the bigger races, farther away. For example, I’m trying to plan to do the Northstar Grand Prix stage race in Minnesota in June. Renting a car and driving the 20hrs, doing the week of races, and driving back (including gas, stopping somewhere to sleep once each way) is a minimum of $500. The entry fee is $145, and I either need to find a homestay, or a week worth of hotels. Expensive trip! The alternative is to fly, which requires purchasing a sturdy bike box (upwards of $350) and a return ticket (probably in the $500 range).

So why this post? Well. Being an amateur bike racer is AWESOME. But it’s also very expensive. I was bemoaning this fact on Facebook, and reached out for suggestions on how possibly to raise money to help with reaching my goals. Someone suggested some crowdsourcing platforms, but ultimately it seemed best just to make a paypal.me account and start asking people to consider contributing to it. I haven’t quite planned out how to make this most effective. I post race videos on YouTube, and I’m active on Instagram and Twitter, particularly with an eye towards service towards my sponsors. One thought is to start including ‘Special Thank Yous to…’ additions to my posts for anyone who contributes and helps me fund a racing trip. Sam graciously asked me to write this post, explain a bit what costs are involved in committing to being an elite bike racer, and possibly get some traffic to my paypal. So…here it is: www.paypal.me/rachelvmckinnon. I would certainly appreciate any help y’all would be willing to give.

I do want to give a little love to those who support women’s cycling. Often our events don’t get the prime time slot, we don’t get media coverage, and we often don’t even have professional photographers covering our races. And not having good photos makes it hard to make sponsors happy, or to show people just how cool women who race are! So first a special thank you to Valerie Leggett (and Bruce Fuller!), who took me into her (their) home for a homestay for some recent races in the Tampa area, but she also took some kick-ass photos of the women’s races. You can find her on instagram at www.instagram.com/valeriedleggett Special people like her make women’s racing possible. I also want to give a shout-out to Weldon Weaver (I’ve included a couple of his photos from this past weekend). He takes professional photos of the women’s field (and the men’s, of course). He also clearly cares about supporting women’s cycling.

rm2
Weldon Weaver (Instagram: @fotowvr; Website: http://www.weldonweaver.com)

 

equality · fitness · Guest Post · martial arts

Fighting Violence Against Women in India With Self-Defence (Guest Post)

shivangibansal4 Comments

Today we are probably living in one the most women conscious decade in Indian women’s history because of the all-time high number of cases of domestic violence against women. From domestic violence to rape we hear cases being reported every day by prominent national and international media organizations. No government, NGO or any other relevant organisation have until now delivered a viable solution to stop this widespread problem in India.

If you are a woman who has a weak heart, you may likely experience the problem and become a cold statistics. Here is my personal experience.

It was a just another night, I was walking back home with my family after a party. We were all chatting and laughing. All of sudden I realized that my grandmother was missing, my heart literally skipped a heartbeat. Although she is old by age but she looks relatively young and something might have happened in between our laughter’s noise. Next second I scanned the road and there she was walking ahead of all of us already reached the end of the road. I quickly communicated to my grandfather to hurry up and what he said changed my outlook of the so-called “women empowerment”.

And he said “Do you think anybody can even touch her; she can herself beat four men at a time”

These were simple words, but they were uncommon to define a woman. I myself fear to walk alone on a deadly deserted road even in daylight. I am younger than her, have travelled half of the country by myself, but still got nothing in comparison to her.

At that moment, I learned a new thing, may be a secret for a lifetime.

The secret was the confidence she had in herself. So I spend a few days studying her days and getting to understand the source of this confidence and there it was loud and clear. She has a lifestyle which has defined her health and lead to a fit body even in her 60s. She has been forever active, carry out most of the household task herself. She has a mindset to take up the challenges and hunt them down.

It was getting wild for me as the intrigued about the subject more because I needed a solution for myself and for every girl (especially in Delhi) who was haunted by the recent women related crime around the country. Her time was different; the world was typically safer, healthier, easier and different in terms of lifestyle as it is today. So the search began for an answer, a face which has a parallel confidence like my grandmother but can deal and work out for modern scenarios. The answer was right in front of me. My YouTube account linked me to a video of Mary Kom. There she was speaking, portraying and living as a feminist we all might need to grow to. She has won in a men’s game in a world where very few girls want to go in and fewer than them succeed. On one particular interview, she gave a very strong comment “I have been confident about myself”. As I read more and more about her she calmed me down and seems to have a way out. There was this fire and self-belief which was common in both of these women.

And so the answer was her trick self-defence.

Now just hold up the thought and consider this, if all the young girls get an opportunity to be trained to some basic level like Mary Kom, if we make them ready with self-defence training, and if we do that for an elongated time stamp, then we might be able to hit them hard and change their psychic. Let they redefine their world and take charge of their life. So next time when she want to go out she may not need her father or uncle or her boyfriend to go with her. The story of domestic violence which resides inside those closed doors may also rest in peace because our girls will be ready to face it and kill the beast in his face and stay as happy as possible.

So I immediately reached out Google “my best friend”, and to my surprise when I checked Justdial for a self-defence training there were more than 85+ options available just in Delhi. I was in a shock, it was going all around and I seemed to be among the last few to know.

I soon came out of my panic attack, as they say in Hindi ”Der aye durust aye” i.e. better late than never. I signed up for a Karate course and will be soon receiving my completion certificate.

The moment has not come yet for me to use my skill, but now when I walk on the road alone my heartbeat do not shoot up with every passing by car or a noisy bike rider. This training, of course have not killed all my fear but certainly it has given me a confidence to give a tough fight, to stay calm even in crisis and above everything this created a belief in me that I can do it. So I am now a permanent devotee to this religion of “Self-Defence” because it has completely changed my outlook towards the social fear and at some level it has also changed the perception of the people around me. Many of my friends have already followed my footstep and are really happy with the choice they made. Try it girls, you will feel the difference.

We have a tendency to delay things till it finally hurt us. But is not our safety our first priority?

If you were waiting for a wake-up call, this is it! There are enormous options in the market. Get out of your comfort zone today, see what suits you and join thousands of others who have realised this solution and have already taken their first step to a safe future.

Hey Lady!! You know what YOU can do it! Cheers!

About the Author:

Shivangi Bansal is an avid writer and self-defence advocate against violence against women in New Delhi. She shares fitness tips through her fitness blog and helps girls access the best gym in Delhi for self-defence training.

aging · body image · equality · men

Whatever’s Comfortable: What would a version of this ad look like with a woman?

Sam B10 Comments

When I first blogged about how much I admire men of a certain age for their body comfort on the beach in the post Men: It isn’t junk, people started sending me a certain ad for Southern Comfort.

It’s worth watching. I hadn’t seen it as I don’t have a television.

The ad is part of the Whatever’s Comfortable campaign which Southern Comfort describes as being “all about championing the attitude it takes to be yourself, and celebrates those people who captivate us because of it.”

It’s also spoofed here in an ad for Save the Children.

In the post I wrote that I was worried about how much the world had changed for younger men and how I missed the forgiving furry bellies of older men on the beach.

Our tolerance for men’s bodies that don’t meet our standards of normative thinness is fast going away. (See Men, meet normative thinness for my reflections on this unfortunate leveling down.)

There’s no shortage of tumblrs of images of older men in speedos on the beach, usually with unpleasant commentary.

Everybody has their story. Awhile ago were talking about an Italian card game we play at my house when a friend said he couldn’t play it. Scopa reminds him, he said. of the old guys in their speedos making espresso on the beach, playing cards all day.

Coffee? The beach? Cards?

Sounds like a winning combo to me! I’d play cards with the old guys.

And I love the Southern Comfort ad. It makes me smile even though I don’t drink alcohol. But I have wondered what a woman’s version of the “Whatever’s Comfortable” campaign would look like.

Could we even do it? Would we still smile if an older woman, with an imperfect body strolled down the beach in her bikini, smiling?

diets · eating · equality · Uncategorized

Does Feeling Good about Weight Loss Make Me a “Bad Feminist?”

Tracy I24 Comments

EqualityMy post the other day about reasons for losing weight besides body hatred generated a great discussion about my implication that appearance-oriented reasons aren’t “consistent with” feminism.

This world has lots to be sad about, including the phenomenon of healthy disagreement among feminists (a good thing) turning into accusations and finger-pointing and the charge that someone is either a “bad feminist” or not a feminist at all. I don’t like to participate in that.

And yet, I don’t think that just anything is consistent with feminism. It’s a political ideology with a clear agenda. That agenda aims first and foremost at promoting gender equality and eradicating gender oppression. Recognizing that women are a diverse group, most feminists either implicitly or explicitly acknowledge that you can’t just isolate gender — race, class, disability, sexuality, ethnicity are also significant dimensions of oppression, and these can interact with one another and with gender to create unique forms of oppression–that is, structural patterns of systemic disadvantage and inequality (forgive me if this is pedantic — I am after all a philosophy professor).

In short, feminism is not just a simple matter of promoting choice for individuals. We need to be keenly aware of the way structures can create social arrangements that privilege some and disadvantage others, not on the basis of individual skills, talents, or means, but rather on the basis of membership (or perceived membership) in visible social groups (be the marked by gender, race, class, sexuality, disability or some combination of these and other social categories that people use to classify people and create social hierarchies).

So while I don’t like all that slamming of one another for not being feminist enough, I also truly believe that there is usually room for improvement.  It’s a simple fact that some behaviors and attitudes do contribute to and promote those patterns of inequality.  And that means that individual choices can have consequences beyond the individual who makes them.

Someone commented that she didn’t really like the implication that it was un-feminist to want to lose weight for the sake of appearance only. I’d suggested in my post that there may be other reasons — health, performance — that were “okay,” but wanting to be thinner for its own sake wasn’t among them.

The fact is, I have unsettled views about all of this as it plays out in my own life. I spend a lot of time trying to re-train my reaction to weight gain and weight loss. For decades the scale determined how I felt about myself. Daily, it either gave me permission to feel okay about myself (if the number went down) or not (if the number went up).

In other words, losing weight has always made me feel kind of good, gaining has always made me feel kind of bad. And at a meta-level, my self-awareness about this fact about me makes me feel a little hypocritical, as if I’m a “bad feminist.” Natalie commented about this and we agreed that there is a lot to say about this issue still.

Intellectually I believe 100% that I am not my weight.  I’m 110% behind the view that no one else’s worth or worthiness is determined by the number on the scale. And yet in my own case, at some level, I still think of weight loss as an achievement of sorts.

Now, why should that make me a bad feminist?  If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that we are anti-diet, anti-appearance focused in our approach to fitness. I have a strong conviction that this is the right way to go, that dieting and the obsession with getting thin is not only self-defeating at the individual level, but oppressive to women more generally. It buys into normative femininity, promotes a narrow view of what an acceptable women’s body is like, and supports a fat-phobic point of view.

The saving grace in my life over the past couple of years has been my slow and steady evolution from a chronic dieter and slave to the scale to a triathlete who cares dramatically more about getting stronger and faster than getting thinner.

And so when I feel that twinge of disappointment, as I did when I got back from my vacation and had gained four pounds, I feel bad twice. Once from the disappointment and once from judging myself for being disappointed. Bad feminist!

When I reflect more fully on this state of affairs though, I don’t actually believe that it makes me a bad feminist. Instead, I think it means I’m having an understandably difficult time fully extricating myself from oppressive social attitudes. My gut still reacts in the way it always has, in the way I’ve been conditioned to react — as if weight loss is a good thing, weight gain a bad thing.

But upon reflection, I know that it’s just a thing — not good, not bad. And I know too that there are lots of other more productive ways we, as women, can spend our time than embroiled in our typically fruitless attempts to change our bodies.  Weight loss can be empowering, but so can all sorts of other things.

Maybe the real issue is that I’m weighing myself at all. Whether that makes me a bad feminist is not so much the point. The fact is, I’ve had times in my life when I swore off the scale completely, and at those times, I was able to turn my attention to other things.  Whatever our view of weight loss, for most of us there are more important things in the world that we can spend our energy on, and without compromising our health.

Those things might actually contribute to social equality. And that’s something any feminist can feel good about.

equality · Uncategorized

Biology Is Destiny: A Couple of Men Explain Why Women Have Curvier Hips and Fatter Butts

Tracy I8 Comments

pregnancy-oil-painting-in-the-belly-original-by-gioia-albano-gioia-albanoIn Women’s Studies we call it biological gender essentialism and it’s not thought to be a good thing. According to this article, recent studies have found, apparently, that women with bigger thighs and bottoms have more intelligent children. Professor Lassek of the University of Pittsburgh and author of Why Women Need Fat says:

You need lots of fat to make a nervous system and the fats in these areas are also enriched in DHA [docosahexaenoic acid] which is a particularly important component in the human brain.

It looks as if women have evolved to accumulate these fats and hold on to them — until a baby arrives.

Another researcher makes a similar claim:

David Bainbridge, a professor at Cambridge University, has backed up these findings in his new book Curvology: The Origins and Power of Female Body Shape.

He says that this phenomena has also affected the type of women that men have evolved to be attracted to – those with curvier hips are likely to give birth to healthier and more intelligent babies – although he does also admit other factors come into it.

So what’s wrong with biological essentialism?  People use it not just to explain women’s bodies but then, by implication, to make normative arguments about what women are best suited for. One day they’re telling us that women’s bodies are the way they are to make babies. The next thing you know, making babies is what women are meant to do.

That means they’re not all that well-suited for careers, public life, pursuits outside of the domestic realm.  These are dangerous arguments for equality and they lurk fairly close the surface of prevalent attitudes about who, ideally, should be doing what. If you don’t believe me, take a look at stats about who does the majority of child care and domestic labor as opposed to who occupies the highest offices of government, and who comprises the majority of CEOs.

It’s also a bit odd, given how pervasively an ultra-thin female body-type is marketed as the feminine ideal, to read that men have evolved to be attracted to women with curves.  If that’s the case, then lots of men didn’t get the memo.

Of course, I haven’t read the studies. I’ve only read a brief report about the studies. News reports about studies are of interest to me because, even if they are not accurate, it’s the reports and not the detailed science that goes out to the public and shapes people’s attitudes. As the last quote says, Bainbridge “does admit other factors come into it.” But the report says nothing about what these “other factors” might be.

I’m intrigued by the idea that these men have devoted their careers to providing evolutionary/biological arguments to explain that women are fatter so they can make healthier, smarter babies. This may sound like a neutral attempt to explain a biological fact. But I can’t help feeling wary about the broader impact of scientific research that suggests that the primary purpose of the female body is to have children.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with having kids, or even that women’s bodies aren’t designed to play a certain role in reproduction.

But there are lots of other things we can do with our bodies, too. And they’re also kind of amazing.

 

aging · athletes · body image · disability · equality · fat · fitness · inclusiveness

Guest Lecturing in “The Body”

Tracy I5 Comments

I just got back from guest lecturing in a Women’s Studies class called “The Body,” taught by our friend and colleague, Wendy Pearson.  Here’s the course description:

How we understand the body, whether through scientific investigation or through its representation in media, literature or art, has material effects on how people’s lives and experiences are shaped. We will examine social and scientific constructions of the body, including concepts of beauty, health, fitness, sexuality, and questions of representation.

The course will also consider how our relationship – both personal and cultural — to our bodies shapes our sense of self and both prescribes and proscribes certain possibilities for how we may live our lives. We will look, for example, at the way in which only certain very fit bodies qualify as athletic or at the ways in which the relationship between musculature and class identity has changed since the early 20th century. We will examine particular social problems, such as our society’s difficulty with understanding the disabled body as sexual, the current cultural obsession with children’s body size, and the psychiatric and medical response to people who feel that their bodily sex does not match their gender. We will consider changing definitions of beauty and how that affects the ways in which different people understand themselves. We may also look at questions of representation, the various ways in which bodies and body parts are represented in the media and the issue of why some forms of representation of the nude body count as art while others are considered pornographic.

Sam and I shared the three-hour class tonight. She took the first half to talk about “Obesity Panics” and the trouble with framing obesity as an illness and its prevalence as an “epidemic.”

When I arrived shortly before the break, the packed room of 180 keen students was challenging her claim that there is something wrong with obesity being considered a disease.  I got there just in time to hear Sam say that unlike cancer, obesity isn’t something you “get.”  It’s something that the charts say you “are.”

After the break, it way my turn. My topic: “Fitness and Normative Bodies.”  By the time Sam was done with them, they were afraid to say that there was a relationship between fitness and fatness.  So hesitant were they to draw any connection that when I asked them about what measures or indicators they might use to judge whether they were physically fit or whether they’d made any progress, not a single person said anything about body weight or even about body composition.

We had a lively discussion about the impact of subtle forms of exclusion in fitness media and representations of fitness culture, in which only a narrow demographic of youthful, lean, toned, nondisabled, people, mostly men and mostly white are depicted.  When women do appear in fitness media, there is a very narrow range of acceptable body types that pass muster.

I saw heads nodding (not nodding off!) when I said that engaging in physical activities that challenge us can be a real source of confidence and empowerment.

It took some convincing, but after hearing both of us I think the majority of the class was at least willing to entertain the idea that there is a pernicious form of exclusion going on in fitness culture. Though sometimes subtle, it makes it very difficult for people who do not fit the normative ideal body type to feel as if they belong.

This then becomes an equality issue, given that health, well-being, confidence, and a sense of your own power are all desirable social goods that can benefit everyone.

I ended by talking a bit about Olga Kotelko, who took up track and field at the age of 77 and had over 750 gold medals to her name by the time she turned 95 (at which age she died).

Olga Kotelko, who began her 18 year track career at age 77 and had 750 gold medals to her name by the time she died at 95.
Olga Kotelko, who began her 18 year track career at age 77 and had 750 gold medals to her name by the time she died at 95.

The upshot: a more inclusive fitness culture that doesn’t preoccupy itself with the narrow demographic who occupies “the normative body” would have enormous social and political benefits that extend way beyond physical fitness.

Thanks, Wendy, for an opportunity to talk to your class. What a fabulous idea for a course and what fun it was to be there!

equality · gender policing · men · Uncategorized

Just wear the damn sunscreen?: Men, gender roles, and skin cancer risk

Sam B5 Comments

image

What’s the biggest single factor that puts you at risk for ignoring your health? Being a man.

Sociologist Lisa Wade, interviewed in New York Magazine, says that “some scholars argue that being male is the single strongest predictor of whether a person will take health risks.”

Men like risk it turns out. Most of them also hate putting lotion on their skin (too girly) and being afraid of things (not manly). They are also more likely to have outdoor jobs and do household tasks that involve being outside the house. Think lawn mowing and BBQ-ing. They also pay less attention to their skin and so don’t catch early warning signs.

Women, generally speaking, don’t mind lotions, do pay attention to changes in our skin, wear sunscreen to avoid premature aging and wrinkles, and often also wear make up year round that contains ingredients that protect skin from the sun.

Male socialization in this case leads to bad results for men. Women, thanks to a different set of gender norms, fare better.

This combination of factors is part of the explanation as to why men between the ages of 15 to 39 are more than twice as likely to die of melanoma than women of that age. According to the American Academy of Dermatology melanoma will kill 6,470 men this year — and half as many women.

The NY Mag, Why are men more likely to get skin cancer?

“Advocates and researchers are currently trying to figure out how to better get the message across to dudes that they really need to slather on the SPF, and last week Wade came across an unlikely solution: the marketing teams that create what Wade calls “pointlessly gendered products.”Usually, Wade writes about such products — like gendered packages of mixed nuts, glue sticks, and even vegetables — with a mixture of snark and incredulousness. But when she came across Banana Boat sunscreen for men last week, she couldn’t help but write a “reluctant defense” of the product.

“Sunscreen is a category of lotion and so putting on sunscreen is equivalent to admitting you’re the sun’s bitch,” she writes. “In fact, thanks in part to the stupid idea that lotion carries girl cooties, men are two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with skin cancer. So, fine, dudes, here’s some sunscreen for men. For christ’s sake.”

Maybe for my teen boys they need an Axe of the sunscreen world? I was amused to see they know have sunscreen especially for tattoos. See http://www.coppertone.com/products/speciality/tattoguard/spray.aspx  even though the Canadian Cancer Society says any full spectrum, high SPF sunscreen will do the trick. The “just for tattoos” stuff looks cooler and I’m sure ounce for ounce, it’s pricier. But whatever.

The sunscreen avoidance and skin cancer risk isn’t the only health problem men face.

National Public Radio: The Unsafe Sex: Should The World Invest More In Men’s Health?

“On average, men aren’t as healthy as women. Men don’t live as long, and they’re more likely to engage in risky behaviors, like smoking and drinking. But in the past decade, global health funding has focused heavily on women. Programs and policies for men have been “notably absent,” says Sarah Hawkes from the University of London’s Institute of Global Health.”

“It’s cool to be a man that smokes and drinks — who drives a fast motorbike, or fast cars,” she says. “If you were really serious about saving lives, you would spend money tackling unhealthy gender norms” that promote these risky behaviors.”

See also 10 bad health habits of men. The list includes the usual: smoking, drinking, fast food, not seeing a doctor regularly, stress, keeping everything bottled in.

Men lead shorter lives than women and some moral philosophers think we ought to be more concerned than we are about this inequality. There are a number of ways in which men’s lives lead to early deaths, stress, yes, but also death in war time, and dangerous jobs such as mining and construction. Men are disproportionately represented in the prison population as well.

(I’ve written a bit before about men’s health. See The unsafe sex where I address some of these arguments.)

When thinking about inequality moral philosophers like to divide up inequalities that are the result of circumstance and luck, from ones that follow from choice. We think individuals are responsible for inequalities that are their own choosing. Sure smokers die young, for example, but that’s a trade off they’ve made.

It’s tempting to put men’s deaths from sun related skin cancer that category.

“Don’t be an idiot! Just wear the damn sunscreen!”

That I can hear cry in my own voice is part of the reason that married men, or men with female partners anyway, live longer. They’re nagged into healthy habits and visit the doctor more often. Now I should say that the person I’m in the best position to nag on this front doesn’t need it, not where sunscreen is concerned. As the result of a scare in his twenties, after growing up a fair skinned, freckled redhead, racing sailboats on the ocean, he was an early adopter of hats, gloves, long sleeves, and serious sunscreen.

Maybe it’s that I’m now parenting teenage boys but I can see how strong gender role socialization is for boys. It’s okay to wear a helmet because “my parents are crazy when it comes helmets. They’ll ground me forever if I ride without one” but not okay to do it because you’re worried about hitting your head.

Note that when young women acquire unhealthy habits, dieting, for example, as a result of female socialization feminists aren’t so quick to dismiss it as a matter of individual choice. Feminists can, and should, take male gender role socialization just as seriously. Indeed, I think feminism offers the best explanation of some of the inequalities that hurt men.

bright sun peeking through a palm tree

 

 

 

 

 

body image · equality · fashion · Uncategorized

The Tata Top, Normalized Bodies, and Feminism

Tracy I10 Comments

Sam wrote about “Nipple Phobia and Padded Sports Bras” way back in the early days of the blog. There she lamented the ubiquity of the padded sports bra (indeed, the padded bra more generally). Where we used to be able to find lots of unpadded bras and sports bras, nowadays it’s a real search.

Part of the reason for this, hypothesized Sam, is that we are caught in the grips of nipple phobia. We don’t want to see them or show them.  As Sam said, they’ve become what the visible panty-line used to be — an unsightly reminder of the natural bodies that actually live under our clothing.

Enter the Tata top.  This bikini top got a lot of press last week on-line.  From a distance, if you’re a white woman with an average sized chest wearing the light-tone Tata, it looks from afar as if you’re going topless.

Tata bikini top for light skin and pink nipples.
Tata bikini top for light skin and pink nipples.

I say if you’re a white woman because the medium tone and dark tone Tatas are not yet available. They are expected to ship in mid-August.  I say if you’re “average sized” because at present the tops are only available in small (A-B) and medium sizes (B-C). Anything larger than a C-cup is also on backorder, with this apology to larger women from the creators: “LARGE CHESTED LADIES…WE UNDERESTIMATED YOU BUT IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!”

The Tata top is supposed to help fight breast stigma, topless inequality, and nipple phobia.  According to this Daily Beast article, it’s meant to help fight gender inequality. That makes it sound like a feminist statement if there ever was one.  The article continues:

The underlying goal of the bikini, however, is meant to desexualize the idea of female nipples and eliminate gendered double standards. Why should it be laughable, or even uncomfortable, for a woman to bare her breasts in public?

“By censoring an image of a woman’s chest and not a man’s it doesn’t end with removing that image from your platform,” Graves and Lytle conclude. “Whether you like it or not you are confirming that YES, a woman’s nipples are indecent and are something that need to be kept covered. You are endorsing that train of thought. You take yourself out of the business of providing a forum for free thinking and place yourself in the position of deciding what is immoral and what isn’t.”

So why, then, is there such an outcry among some feminists about this top?  Well, there are a number of reasons. The most common is that the first iteration — marketed to and for women with bodies that are white and slight — sends an unmistakable message about normative bodies.

The Jezebel article ends with this remark: “Like many aspects of modern-day feminism, right now, this one’s only available to women with light skin and disposable income. But the inventors of the Ta Ta Top promise that more colors are coming soon.”

The medium tone Tata top, available in mid-August.
The medium tone Tata top, available in mid-August.

The various attempts on the website to apologize, first to the “large-chested ladies” whom they “underestimated,” and then to women with “medium” or “dark” skintones don’t really succeed in overcoming the oversight. To the women with different skintones, they offered not so much an apology as a promise that the medium and dark tops will arrive and an excuse as to why they aren’t yet available:

Will you have other skin tones?

Absolutely but first we need to prove a market! Investing money and ending up with one TaTa Top is funny. Investing money in three tones and ending up with 2,000 TaTa’s is slightly less so. The more we sell the more tones and more styles we will able to offer. Take our TaTa Top poll to help us decide which direction to take next.

The dark-toned Tata, available in mid-August.
The dark-toned Tata, available in mid-August.

This is not a new issue by any means.  The “What’s Your Nude?” campaign raised awareness about how difficult it is to find “nude” bras in brown skin tones. See “Not MY Nude: Why I Started the Brown Bra Scavenger Hunt.”

The “What’s Next?” poll on the Tata website focuses on extra small and extra large sizing and the turns to fashion, with four different piercing choices.

I also heard some people raising the usual questions about initiatives that raise their profile by aligning themselves with charities to support the already over-supported cause of breast cancer research. It might sound callous to roll one’s eyes whenever yet another thing promotes itself by raising money for breast cancer research, but the pink ribbon thing has many detractors, who complain about “pinkwashing”:

The term “pinkwashing” was coined by Breast Cancer Action in reference to companies that either promote breast cancer awareness without donating at all, are deceptive or not transparent about where any funds raised go, or put a pink ribbon on a product with known or suspected links to cancer.

For the ins and outs of the debate, see this Forbes article on “The Pinkwashing Debate: Empty Criticism or Serious Liability.”

By far the most interesting comment came to my from fellow feminist philosopher Kristin Rodier, who took issue with the claim that linked body exposure to freedom, and who very quickly asked about the range of sizes available. In order to further elaborate the point about exposure as freedom, she sent me Kelly Oliver’s paper, “Sexual Freedom as Global Freedom.”

The paper focuses on the Western “rhetoric of liberating ‘women of cover.”  Oliver argues that we in the west have reduced women’s freedom “to freedom to to dress (especially in revealing clothes for the eyes of others), governed by market forces of fashion and consumerism.”  She further claims that “this view of women’s freedom is used to justify military action elsewhere, and to reassure Western women of their own freedom at home. The rhetoric of liberating women elsewhere conceals women’s oppression here at home while at the same time reassuring us that we are liberated.”

How does the Tata top fit into this picture?  By purporting to address the issue of women’s oppression through a top that mimics maximum exposure of women’s upper bodies.  We may not (yet) have a achieved full gender equality because men can go topless while (for the most part) women cannot, but the Tata top is here to save the day.

As reported on Salon.com: “Ladies, now you can free your nipples without going topless.”  This focus on freedom belies a very Westernized perspective that, indeed, doesn’t even apply to all Western women.

I think the original limited offerings of this item only to light skinned women with pink nipples and A-C sized breasts demonstrates well whose nipple freedom “we” as a society will tolerate. Not everyone’s exposed skin is equally welcome, and when non-normative bodies are exposed, there is a different social meaning, a different kind of statement being made. It’s not just “fun.”

I get the impression from the website and different articles I’ve read that the company is not quite sure how to market the top.  The equality card is one angle. But they also claim to be wanting to normalize the breast and nipple so that they’re de-sexualized. Somewhere on the site it talks about normalizing the sight of women breast-feeding in public, which certainly is a worthwhile cause.

But the website isn’t wholly on board with the desexualization of the breast, and in fact when I first went to the website last week it included a “warning” that said: ““Disclaimer: Wearers are cautioned to be prepared for the onslaught of pick up lines it is sure to elicit.” That message, which seems to celebrate the top as an expression of sexuality, has since been removed (or at least I couldn’t find it when I went back).

I also think that the top is likely to have more applications as a novelty item than as an item that plays a huge role in achieving gender equality.  I think the size and skintone gaffes, as well as the more pointed perspective expressed in Oliver’s paper about how Westernized this idea of freedom through revealing clothing, raise serious questions about the top’s capacity to promote an inclusive feminist agenda.