Conference turris::womannotes-v3

I do know what you're talking about.

And I see these images just _about_ everywhere I look. In fact, I find more
images of 'real' women than I do object-women -- so I'd have to say they are
more prevalent.

I don't find these women/people splayed across the yellow-rags and the how-to-
be-sexier-than-everyone-on-your-street manuals.  So, it's rare indeed that I
see a 'subjective' person of _any_ sort or flavour while standing on line at
the market.  It's not drug-store material.

[One of the most compelling images of a woman I've ever seen is a photograph by
Avedon of a young woman of 17 with her husband.  Both of them are facing the 
camera right-on and in her face you can see integrity, despair, intelligence,
worry, and a core of self-esteem that nothing could blow away.  That stranger's
face has been my inspiration.]

Perhaps if we were to seek validating images in more appropriate places, it 
would help.

  Ann

    I think it would feel good, Dorian, very good.  I know for myself I
    would not have spent the many years I did hating the fact that I was
    female and feeling like little more than sexual prey and fair game for
    any level of attention a man might decide to bestow upon me.  The 
    prevalence of the cupcake image and the absence of any other kind of
    image eventually led me to believe that's what women were here for so we 
    were supposed to "learn" how to deal with the inevitable attentions of 
    the generic man-on-the-street who chose to "appreciate" us.  My method of 
    dealing with it was to spend many years slinking around, eyes lowered so 
    as not to meet men's, altering routes to avoid them, etc.  The other parts 
    of me, my mind, the fact that I loved to write, the year I excelled in 
    geometry, the day I learned to pick out a song on a guitar, ("Eve of 
    Destruction", Barry McGuire :-)  ), all seemed inconsequential and of 
    little interest to the world compared to the color of my hair, the clothes 
    I wore, the way I walked.  The things women *did* all seemed to be treated 
    as cute little hobbies, of interest only to their mothers, while what they 
    *were*, physically, was of supreme interest to everyone and so was
    "celebrated" and "honored" constantly, everywhere.
    
    If real images of women were prevalent, and even if they were there in
    a 50/50 ratio with the cupcake ones, (some women genuinely ARE cupcakes
    and there's no reason to hide that fact, either), I know I would have held 
    my head up a lot earlier than I finally did and I would have valued my
    accomplishments over my "surface area" a lot sooner than I did.  
    
    Seeing all women as nuclear physicists would be just as inhibiting to me 
    as seeing them all as toys.  It's "a question of balance" and a healthy 
    balance would have shown me that women were acceptable and interesting to 
    society beyond their ability and/or willingness to fornicate.

re .1 -

>  Perhaps if we were to seek validating images in more appropriate places, it 
>  would help.

I like your term "validating images," that's really what I was trying to 
say. 

I guess my point about seeing such images in drugstores and markets is,
what we see there is what's most visible -- there and on tv and in the
movies etc -- and so I think that these *are* "appropriate places," that
that's where validating images of women might really have an impact. For
example, your description of the Avedon image is really intriguing, but I
don't even know who Avedon is or where you might have seen this image --
I'd probably have to go look it up in a library. Whereas if it was on the
cover of a popular magazine or in a much-publicized movie or ad, I probably
would know! 

Dorian

    re: Avedon, point of information
    
    Richard Avedon is a photographer who became widely known for
    portrait work he did in the 70's for Rolling Stone magazine.
    He did a number of black and white works for them of rock 
    artists characterized by stark backgrounds, unclothed portraits
    usually from the shoulders up, with an essentially cinema
    v�rit� quality� (no airbrushing of wrinkles, moles, five o'clock
    shadow, etc.).  A good many of his Rolling Stone portraits including
    photos of Janis Joplin and Yoko Ono were sold widely as posters 
    
    Steve
    
    � dunno if there's an equivalent term for still photography. . .

    Richard Avedon also did the famous portrait of Nastassia Kinski 
    lying naked wrapped around an enormous snake.  His pictures are 
    fabulously provocative.  Check covers of Vanity Fair magazine where 
    a lot of his work ends up.  I think he also might have done the 
    now famous "hot" photo of Diane Sawyer for the cover of Vanity Fair 
    a couple of years ago. 

    Sandy, I'm curious why you consider Natassia Kinski's lying naked
    wrapped around an enormous snake to be "subjectifying" a woman
    rather than "objectifying" her.
    
    Is is because of Richard Avedon's status as a "serious" photographer?
    
      Alan

>    Richard Avedon also did the famous portrait of Nastassia Kinski 
>    lying naked wrapped around an enormous snake.  

I love that picture...my favorite part?  She's pregnant.  And they don't
try to hide it.  She isn't *that* pregnant (5 mos?), so it doesn't stand
out, but it's there and it's noticeable, and they didn't try to get her
to lie on her stomach or drape the snake over it or anything else to hide
the fact.

And if for no other reason, I think *that* makes it more "subjectifying" 
(don't know if I like that word) than "objectifying".  After all, I bet
her child is a big part of her personhood.  In our society pregnancy isn't
usually considered beautiful, and yet there's Natassia, pregnant and as
gorgeous as ever.  [Woof!]  How many pregnant women do you see on the
cover of Cosmo or in Playboy?

D!

re.3  Dorian

My use of the word 'appropriate' is quite inadequate to the sense of what I was
trying to say. I'll try an analogy, though I find them far from satisfactory as
well:

I see the magazine racks in check-out lines and drug stores as being very
much akin to the general run of check-out line merchandise -- fluff, but not
sustenance.  I would no more build my psyche on the pictorial and reading matter
I found there than I would build my diet on the food-stuffs to be found there.

Building and validating unique personhood is not fluff-work. Somehow Georgia
O'Keefe on the cover of "Self" strikes a dissonance despite the implied 
personhood of the title.

I do not seek substance in superficial places.

As an aside on Avedon, I encountered him first in Rolling Stone and found him
very gifted, but would not have spent time to see an exhibition until I saw
the face I earlier described staring out at me at the Park Street T station
promoting an exhibit at ICA. Anyone who could capture _that_ face deserved a
second look, and 'Faces of the West' was more than worth it -- _real_ people
of all ages, mostly poor, but some more comfortably off. His most famous works
may be sensational or titillating, but the bulk of his effort and genius has
been spent in capturing a more powerful and substantive image of humanity.

As for television, there _are_ some strong female images to be found there --
but not in sitcoms, cop shows, and advertisements.

Somehow there seems to be a general tendency to take what we're given rather
than seek what we want and bring it to the foreground.  If 90% [swag estimate]
of the women we see do _not_ fit the Image of the check-out counter, it doesn't
take a large leap of reason to conclude that the check-out counter is not where
one looks to find real women.  We need to look elsewhere and _then_ move to
replace the spurious images --- not wait for "someone" to replace them so we
feel more validated.

  Ann

    re .8 -
    
    Sorry, I don't agree - I think we all soak up what we see at the
    check-out counter whether we do so intentionally or not. That's a large
    part of my point. And even if you or I don't soak it up as much as some
    other people do, or even if we consciously tune it out and seek
    validating images elsewhere, a whole lot of people do soak it up to a
    very great degree. I think the whole subject of the effect of the mass
    media (checkout counters et cet.) on the thoughts and attitudes of us
    all is vast and for the most part unexplored territory, and that we're
    probably influenced by it in ways and to extents that we have no idea
    of. 
    
    So can we agree to disagree on this one...? :-)
    
    Dorian

re. D!
>gorgeous as ever.  [Woof!]  How many pregnant women do you see on the
>cover of Cosmo or in Playboy?

None.  And I have to srongly agree that Pregnancy *is* beautiful!

-Hamp(whose toes tingle whenever he see or is near pregnant women)

    But Dorian, if we are to say that checkout stand papers influence us
    are you also believing that "UFO vampires murder sailors". "Two headed
    woman is pregnant and one head wants an abortion". Pick your favorite star
    has had an "affair with an alien". "Giant worm destroys streets of
    midwestern city". liesl

    re .11 -
    
    No, I'm not saying that. Why would I be?
    I'm not talking about the headlines on the tabloids, but the images of
    women on the covers of the magazines and in the ads that are often
    displayed. The graphics, the pictures of women as objects being used to
    sell lipstick or nail polish or to be used as sexual toys. The suggestion 
    that "this is what women are" that we get whenever we pop into CVS for
    lifesavers or something, and end up internalizing without even thinking
    about it.
    
    Dorian 

    >Sandy, I'm curious why you consider Natassia Kinski's lying naked
    >wrapped around an enormous snake to be "subjectifying" a woman
    >rather than "objectifying" her.
    
    Well, Alan, here's some proof of how the details of an image can slip 
    into one's subconscious and shape one's opinions sometimes without 
    one even knowing it.  Have you seen the picture?  AT first, from
    memory, I had to struggle to remember the details that elevate this one
    from the slimepits.  Thank you D! for one of the details that save it - 
    her pregnancy.  This normal part of womanhood wasn't "hidden away" as it 
    always is, (along with most of the rest of normal womanhood in porno pix). 
    Also, her facial expression is not the ridiculous, "Come do me up you big, 
    strong brute - I'm a sex machine and always will be".  She looks calm,
    almost mischievous in that she knows quite well that what she's hugging
    is shocking.  For the record, she was pretty afraid of that snake
    during the shoot but it doesn't show.  Another attaboy for Avedon.  
    
    Nor is her nakedness used as the central theme of the photo as in "Oh 
    look, Henry, this woman's got actual nipples!"  Nothing really shows
    but her skin.  The nakedness is there to portray skin on skin in a 
    way in which the average person would NEVER find herself.  It smashes
    myths about women and snakes, supports a few others, portrays some
    forbiddenness, and displays a textural contrast in the touching of the
    snake's skin and the model's.  Posing next to the snake wouldn't have 
    worked.  It would have shown the boys some nips and pubes, but that
    wasn't his aim.  Avedon went for maximum surface contact to get across
    his skin-on-skin theme.  They are literally entwined.
    
    The composition is far more complex than simply, "See my behind?  You 
    like?"  And that's the difference.  Porn concentrates on the surface
    area of women and ignores everything else about them.  This picture,
    although the surface area of a woman is included does not ignore the
    other things about womanhood.  And maybe that's the difference - not
    what is shown, but what is left out.
    
    This picture is not the usual one-dimensional attempt to pack in all the 
    symbols of horniness for men and throw it at them in one fell swoop.  
    Rather, it's rich with levels of meaning for men and women alike.  And it 
    is gorgeous in large part because of that.  Is all this lost on you?
    
    >Is is because of Richard Avedon's status as a "serious" photographer?
    
    Please spare me your sarcasm.  Helmut Newton's a "serious" photographer 
    and so are the ones who sell to the skin mags and most of that work is
    as delicate and subtle as primary colors.  Few people have ever
    heard of Tana Kaleya but you should see HER work with male skin!  She
    can make you see nothing yet know everything.  Perhaps you just don't
    look beyond the surface in a picture and simply assume that if it
    contains a naked woman, it must be smut for guys.
    
    I think maybe you just joyfully thought you might have "caught" me in a
    contradiction.  You really have a thing about porn, don't you.

re.9 Dorian

  Indeed we can disgree.  It would be a pity if we couldn't.

  I have never denied the impact of the blatant and subliminal messages we are
bombarded with on a daily basis.  I agree that mass-media images are both
limited in scope and limiting in their effects.

  I believe that decrying the mass-images as harmful while not actively seeking
validating images to replace them is short-sighted and lazy.  I would dearly
love to see Sierra Club replace The Enquirer and a truly 'cosmopolitan' woman
replace the Cosmo Girl.  I'm working on it very hard through my activisms --
in the course of which I am exposed to a broader world with many validating
images and role models of women as individuals, as women, and as people.

  Perhaps I'm mis-reading you; but I believe that our 'disagreement' is more
a matter of strategy than it is of perception.

  Ann

    re .14 -
    
    Sounds as if we agree more than I thought...I *am* seeking validating
    images elsewhere, that's what I asked in the base note, for more
    suggestions as to where to find them. At the same time I think a lot of
    people are shortsighted and lazy and just have too many other things to
    do, so the stuff they see in the proverbial checkout line ends up
    being the stuff they take in, and it shapes their attitudes toward
    people in general and women in particular.
    
    Maybe what I'm asking is twofold:
    
      o  Where can I find more validating images, ones that "subjectify"
         women?
    
      o  Once we know where they are, is there some way of getting them
         into CVS?  :-)  (it's a drugstore chain in Mass.)
    
    Dorian

    some nits;
    Steve, and others:
    I'm wondering if some of you are mistaking the work of Annie Liebowitz,
    with Richard Avedon. Annie Liebowitz did all the Rolling Stone covers
    for many, many years until there was a parting of the ways in the
    early 80's, I believe, and last I heard was doing covers for Vanity
    Fair. Avedon did some famous posters of the Beatles in the Sixties,
    a wide variety of fashion work, and a famous series of portraits of
    his father.
    
    re:0
    Most of the images you are describing exist for one purpose;
    to sell a product. These are advertising images in magazines whose
    raison d'etre is fashion, or selling products for the home. They
    are trying to make you believe that you will be a better/happier
    person if you buy their product. And how do you market cosmetics?
    By showing slick, beautiful surfaces.
    
    -roger
    
    I hink it is important to differentiate between fashion, and
    portrature photography, where you seek the essence of a person's
    identity.

    Re: .13

    >> Is is because of Richard Avedon's status as a "serious" photographer?
    
    > Please spare me your sarcasm.  Helmut Newton's a "serious" photographer 
    
    I wasn't trying to be sarcastic here, Sandy. When I am, usually you're
    astute enough to know. (There's sarcasm, in case you missed it.)

    > I think maybe you just joyfully thought you might have "caught" me in a
    > contradiction.  

    I've "caught" you make (although I haven't always commented upon them)
    contradictory statements before. So do I make them. We all do. 

    It wasn't my intent to catch you. I'm sorry that you chose to interpret
    it that way. 

    And I'm sorry that, because you misinterpreted my comment, you felt it 
    necessary to go into attack mode. 

    >                 You really have a thing about porn, don't you.

    I can make that same observation about you.

      Alan

set mode/semi-penitent

my apologies to the =wn= community at large for uncovering the Richard Avedon
rat-hole.  I could discuss his work for hours as much of his work is quite
powerful, but ...

set mode/default

I brought it up in the first place as an exhibit of his work, most recently
'Faces of the West', is a place where one might go in search of images of
women [and and men and children] that go beyond the one-dimensional mass-media
Image.

In a way I miss the old Life and Look and Saturday Evening Post magazines.
[Let's not talk about 'the Bra issue' -- I was sooooo disillusioned]  Their
photo essays focused on actual people and events rather than media icons and
Events.  Maybe we should instigate a massive 'bring back Classic Life' campaign.
It always sold at the check-out at the drug-store and the market. [hey, and
it might even give me a chance to sell a photo-essay ... 8^) ... hah!!]

  Annezx

.11> But Dorian, if we are to say that checkout stand papers influence us
.11> are you also believing that "UFO vampires murder sailors". "Two headed
.11> woman is pregnant and one head wants an abortion". Pick your favorite star
.11> has had an "affair with an alien". "Giant worm destroys streets of
.11> midwestern city". liesl

    That's not the sort of influence being discussed; it's the subliminal
    message we get from seeing these papers for sale along every checkout
    aisle:

        Someone out there is making a living off the fact that a
        significant number of people CARE what Cher wore to event XXX
        (but don't give a hoot about what Donald Trump wore).

    The amazing whipped cream diet.  Elvis born again as a siamese twin.
    People buy this stuff because they find it interesting to read.  Buy
    telling us what causes cancer or how to lose weight it caters to mass
    insecurities.  The UFO stories cater to a sense of ridiculous adventure.
    But most of what these papers cater to is nosiness - the desire to be
    the first to know the juicy piece of gossip.  Some things don't make
    very good gossip (Donald Trump wears grey suit to lawyer's office).
    Some do (Marla Maples wears grey suit to Donald Trump's lawyer's office).
    It's the sense of _why_ some things make good gossip and others don't
    that gets absorbed.

    Some of this is very obvious (like that what women wear, the medical
    problems of movie stars, UFOs, and what's coming up on the soaps, are
    interesting, but what men wear, the medical problems of the homeless,
    commercial airliners, and what's coming up on the National Geographic
    specials are not interesting), but some is more subtle.  (Like, why would
    anyone be interested in owning a pull-out poster-size picture of "the
    world's fattest" tabby cat?)

    Most of the pictures you see at the checkouts of women show them dressed
    in revealing, often gaudy, clothing, or show them next to headlines
    advertising diets or recipes ("treat your family to our 15-minute 
    strawberry chiffon surprise!).  The pictures of men aren't quite as
    one-sided; Elvis (on the National Enquirer) gets equal billing with
    Gorbachev (on Time).

    It's a commonly known fact that children are influenced by the candy 
    along supermarket aisles.  Why wouldn't they be influenced by the
    pictures they see there too?

        Sharon
   

<    It's the sense of _why_ some things make good gossip and others don't
<    that gets absorbed.

<    Most of the pictures you see at the checkouts of women show them dressed
<    in revealing, often gaudy, clothing, or show them next to headlines
<    advertising diets or recipes ("treat your family to our 15-minute 
<    strawberry chiffon surprise!).  The pictures of men aren't quite as
<    one-sided; Elvis (on the National Enquirer) gets equal billing with
<    Gorbachev (on Time).

    I agree that *why* we want to look at this stuff is key. Certainly the
    fact that women are showpieces in our society has something to do with
    this. But I think of societies where women have a much more non-public
    presence (like Iran f'instance) and have a much more restricted and
    circumscribed lifestyle. There are no Cosmo girls staring across the
    line in Teran but I wouldn't trade places on a bet.

    So why *do* the check out lines cater to this side of us? Perhaps
    we want to read about the trials of these "famous" women to console
    ourselves that just because they have made it doesn't mean they are
    happy and respectable. Maybe we are making them pay for their beauty or
    their success.  "that's OK dear, we may be ordinary but look at the
    problems they have". We want to bring them down to our level. 

    I read fantasy novels by the boatload so I can't say much about those
    who read about Elvis and UFOs. :*)

    As for relevance to the topic - sure I'd like to see more women on the
    front of serious mags and less in the way of newsstand cheesecake. I
    read magazines like Mother Jones which often show strong women. And
    Equus (a horse magazine) that shows mostly women (hey, its' our sport).
    If you want these images start supporting the alternative press where
    you see a lot more of them. liesl

    Well I have to admit that I love reading stories  about people
    who've been through tough times (floods, earthquakes, diseases,
    kid problems) and survived them.
    
    That's one reason I buy 'those' magazines.
    
    Bonnie

    I think one of the most readily available (albeit relatively expensive)
    places to get pictures of REAL women (not women portrayed as their
    component physical bodily affects and clothing) is to go to the
    photography section of the bookstore (No, I'm NOT talking about the
    "how to photograph a nude" books, either).  There you'll find several
    books by (oh, drat, I forget the photographer's name) called "The
    Family of Woman", "The Family of Children", and "The Family of Man". 
    They're fully human portraits of people being who they are, where they
    are, with some really striking quotes alongside.
    
    I guess that's my most memorable exposure to what I perceive is being
    discussed here.
    
    -Jody