I Heart Boobies

Everyone has seen them- the "I Heart Boobies" bracelets, the 'I Heart Boobies' shirts, even just recently, TCU passed out bracelets to students that read 'Hugs for Jugs'. For some reason there is a growing phenomenon of breast cancer awareness that has nothing at all to do with cancer. The trend started a couple years ago when a non-profit agency "The Keep A Breast Foundation" began running campaigns and selling various paraphernalia with their slogan "I Heart Boobies" in order to increase awareness and encourage pro-activity on the part of women to stay a step ahead of breast cancer. Their website states that "Everything [they] do involves education...Breast health has been viewed as older woman's issue for too long. KAB is committed to raising awareness of the disease among young people by developing new narratives and new approaches to outreach." Their methods are certainly new, and they appear to be effective, but are they appropriate and respectful towards the serious nature of breast cancer?

http://www.keep-a-breast.org

A recent breast cancer PSA created by a Chilean agency, Lowe Porta, is a montage of nothing but boobs; in sports bras, in low cut shirts, the video is really blatantly sexy and, considered by some to be, blatantly inappropriate. Nobody will argue that women are sexualized in the media; many would agree with the common advertising slogan "sex sells"; but is it appropriate to sexualize women and create a sexy ad to advertise awareness for breast cancer? If the point is to empower women and to take control of their health, shouldn't we be avoiding these kinds of sexist images?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/breast-cancer-psa-focuses-on-boobs-not-women_n_2018080.html?utm_hp_ref=women&ir=Women

Another article posted by the New York Times reads 'The Pinking of America', discussing the growing awareness of breast cancer and their feminine ad techniques. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/business/in-the-breast-cancer-fight-the-pinking-of-america.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

After the recent Susan G. Komen scandal with Planned Parenthood, breast cancer awareness has been in the media. But what is causing this new phenomenon of focusing just on the 'breast' in breast cancer? Is it just a way for the media to grab the public's attention? To make someone do a double take? If so, its working! The problem that I have with it is that it appears to me to be sexualizing a deadly disease. The whole point of breast cancer awareness ad campaigns and PSAs is to make the public aware of their risks and encourage women to be proactive. So, while I can see the advantages of having an advertisement that makes people take notice, I also feel as though its somewhat degrading and in many ways minimizes the actual issue at hand.

'Binders Full of Women'

In this year's presidential debate there has been much talk about the white-black race discussions as the conservative, Republican, patrician Mitt Romney goes against our current president, the Democratic Barack Obama. In last week's debate, however, a new discussion came to the forefront of news media and social media, when Mitt Romney commented on the 'binder full of women' that he requested for his staff as governor of Massachusetts. Within seconds the comment had gone viral, even garnering its own Twitter account and Tumblr page (http://bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com/). 

The Washington Post's article: 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/binder-full-of-women-comment-spills-onto-campaign-trail/2012/10/18/39bfbab8-1928-11e2-b97b-3ae53cdeaf69_story.html
 
But what was really interesting was the conversation that this comment stirred up. Romney was clearly trying to make the point that he believed in including women in his gubernatorial cabinet. He claims that after realizing his staff was all women he asked local women's groups to suggest qualified female candidates, and they supplied him with 'binders full of women'. Despite the fact that Romney was trying to show his support of women, the comment in fact led to lots of negative backlash. The way that he handled this story and his comments concerning it seemed to suggest just how out of touch with the female population the candidate really is! It was a bizarre statement that seemed to make it clear that this whole story was a stunt to falsify history of his pro-feminist opinions.

The Daily Beast article about Romney's comment going 'viral':
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/17/mitt-romney-s-binders-full-of-women-comment-sets-internet-ablaze.html

This whole debate however triggers a concern in me that I seem to face all the time- are we only concerned about this statement because it was about women? I feel that if roles were reversed, nobody would have cared. If Sarah Palin back in 2008 said that she had 'binders full of men' the audience would have chuckled and nobody would have thought twice about it. 

By making a point to include women and to tell everyone how inclusive we are, are we just agitating the problem? Does it really matter that Romney requested to have women in his cabinet if the real problem is that they weren't there in the first place? 

Women in this election are going to make a huge difference when it comes to voting, the 'Starbucks' vote as some people have dubbed it. By trying to make it clear how much he cares about women's' involvement, did Romney just lose their support?

Race in the 2012 Election

 

The thing that is currently on the forefront of most Americans' minds is the 2012 Presidential election. With our nation's first black president currently in office, this year’s Presidential race is going to be unlike any other before it. Our nation made history in 2008 when we elected Barack Obama to office; will we do it again? The fact that we have one white and one black candidate leads to some conflicts in the races that have nothing to do with policies, healthcare, jobs, or the deficit... an article recently published in the Washington Post says that Mitt Romney is actually using race in a large way to gain votes. 


Race in the 2012 Election, Washington Post:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/27/race-and-the-2012-election/


The article discusses how a large majority of the ads found on Mitt Romney's campaign site are related to welfare- 5 out of the total ten. There are four related to health care, one introducing Paul Ryan, but five that discuss welfare and Romney's plans for how to handle it. According to the article, the ads are puzzling for a number of reasons, the first of which is that welfare isn't really a problem in our society today. The second suggests that when a campaign focuses on one attack, it is almost always because research shows that there is a positive response to that attack. When a political scientist tested the ads and asked viewers questions he reported an interesting phenomenon- racial resentment affected whether people thought that Mitt Romney would help the poor and the middle class and African Americans and did nothing to stir up other attitudes, like a particular party affiliation. This strong racial element doesn’t mean that the ads are racist, but just that they work better with a racist audience…

Link to Mitt Romney's Official Campaign site videos: http://www.mittromney.com/videos

Because our current president is African America and is running against a white man, racial views and perspectives play an incredibly prominent role in this year’s elections. Racial allegiance is one thing that is being called into question- will white people vote for Romney simply because he’s white? Will minorities vote for Obama simply because he is African American? Does the race card in this election take away from the politics and the political goals? Are we actually losing some of the election’s integrity because people can’t get over the issue of race? A recent survey published by the American Psychiatric Journal says that the answer is a simple yes.

Survey on Race’s Role in the Election, American Psychiatric Journal: http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2012/08/presidential-election.aspx

Even those people who don’t think that they are racist or have certain racial ideas may not be aware that subliminally, they are. As long as the media has existed it has spouted racist stereotypes and promoted gender and ethnic inequalities. Even if we think that we are immune to these ideas or neutral towards the issue of ethnic differences, this study and others like it show that we are not. The subliminal messages that we have been receiving for years lead us to think differently, in ways that we aren’t even aware of.

As can be seen by the plethora of ads on Mitt Romney’s campaign site, racism definitely has an effect on how we view issues, even if we don’t know it.