This gawker quote sums it up for me:

The Reddit admin's defense of the pedophile sections has always been mind boggling. Erik Martin, Reddit general manager: "There's stuff on there that's extremely offensive and reprehensible. but we're not an editorial site. If something's legal we don't touch it."

...but there are other legal things that Reddit forbids: posting your own personal information, posting advice about eating disorders or suicide, offensive language, being under 13 years of age, having multiple accounts, bullying, commercial posts, letting someone else use your account, impersonating someone, duplicate posts, and, I kid you not, sexually suggestive images.

i dont get the comments about her being too skinny. is it because you are jealous? or just so used to seeing people with eating disorders that are either fat blubs with no humanoid shape left or skinny anorexia girls? look at her face, it's neither sunk in nor swollen or anything that would imply her being malnurished. some people are just skinnier than the rest of you fatties. get over it.

>> ^SDGundamX:

>> ^dannym3141:
@sgundamx I still think my comment stands - article or no article. Unless you can categorically state that there was no abuse before advertisements, there's no evidence for the sentiment that she's insinuating.
There's so many people in this thread arguing with other people, often times even two people in agreement are having some sort of tiff. I'll tell you why;
Firstly, males are less likely to notice sexism towards females because it doesn't affect them, doesn't even happen when they're around perhaps.
Secondly, women are more likely to notice sexism towards females because it only happens to them or around them, and women who are aware of sexism (or perhaps anti sexism campaigners) are more likely to see false positives, times when there was no sexism, just plain ignorance or rudeness, and it's chalked down to sexism.
Thirdly, everyone is different - some guys think they wouldn't be bothered if they were a girl and all they saw were skinny girls, and then you'll get girls saying "how can you say that? oh yes you would!" and then they'll get a reply saying "how can you say i would? oh no i wouldn't!" and so on.
But let's at least be fair about the matter. People saying "how would you feel if ALL YOU SAW was toned and fit handsome guys?" - this is not the situation. If that were the case, all your friends and relatives and everyone you ever saw or knew about would have to be skinny, and you were the only one that wasn't. In actual fact, advertisements display something utterly bullshit but then you go out into the street and see a load of perfectly average people. I'm not saying whether you should or should not get offended, but at least make the argument fair - it is advertisements and media, not everything

Sorry, what?
I don't see anywhere in my comment or the video where people are insinuating that there was no "abuse" (I'm not sure what you mean by the use of this word) before advertisements. I stated--in several posts--that the advertisements are both a cause (maintaining the status quo) and an effect of a societal norm that makes it okay to objectify women. And both I and the presenter in the video pointed out that objectifying a person is one of the first steps taken when someone wishes to commit violence against another person. Therefore, these ads are basically fostering a social atmosphere where it is okay to dehumanize women, to value them only for their appearance, and that seems extremely dangerous to me.
The objectification of women is a problem that extends way beyond just advertising--it pervades all of our mass media: movies, tv, and music. And why does it pervade our mass media? Because it works. Because we've accepted it as normal. It's no fluke that the cosmetics industry is a $1.9 billion dollar industry with around 3% growth a year and fantastic profits or that the diet industry rakes in $55 billion dollars a year (as of 2006) and is still growing. It's not a coincidence that rates of eating disorders in adolescents are rising. It's not solely the ads that are responsible for this, but the message--that gets reinforced constantly by the media and often by our own peers--that our worth as a human being is directly related to how well we fit the images we are bombarded with daily. Like she said in the video, we may walk out the door and see that what is being presented is impossible to obtain but that doesn't seem to stop us for striving for it anyway as the statistics I presented above show.


In the same way - sorry, what?

I originally stated that insinuating that abuse came from adverts objectifying women was a poor argument, and then when you replied saying abuse comes from objectification, i replied saying that it wasn't fair to say adverts cause abuse. I haven't read your massive post because the snippets i skimmed through didn't even seem to relate to what i was saying.

Nice talking with you, but i don't think we're having the same conversation.

>> ^dannym3141:

@sgundamx I still think my comment stands - article or no article. Unless you can categorically state that there was no abuse before advertisements, there's no evidence for the sentiment that she's insinuating.
There's so many people in this thread arguing with other people, often times even two people in agreement are having some sort of tiff. I'll tell you why;
Firstly, males are less likely to notice sexism towards females because it doesn't affect them, doesn't even happen when they're around perhaps.
Secondly, women are more likely to notice sexism towards females because it only happens to them or around them, and women who are aware of sexism (or perhaps anti sexism campaigners) are more likely to see false positives, times when there was no sexism, just plain ignorance or rudeness, and it's chalked down to sexism.
Thirdly, everyone is different - some guys think they wouldn't be bothered if they were a girl and all they saw were skinny girls, and then you'll get girls saying "how can you say that? oh yes you would!" and then they'll get a reply saying "how can you say i would? oh no i wouldn't!" and so on.
But let's at least be fair about the matter. People saying "how would you feel if ALL YOU SAW was toned and fit handsome guys?" - this is not the situation. If that were the case, all your friends and relatives and everyone you ever saw or knew about would have to be skinny, and you were the only one that wasn't. In actual fact, advertisements display something utterly bullshit but then you go out into the street and see a load of perfectly average people. I'm not saying whether you should or should not get offended, but at least make the argument fair - it is advertisements and media, not everything


Sorry, what?

I don't see anywhere in my comment or the video where people are insinuating that there was no "abuse" (I'm not sure what you mean by the use of this word) before advertisements. I stated--in several posts--that the advertisements are both a cause (maintaining the status quo) and an effect of a societal norm that makes it okay to objectify women. And both I and the presenter in the video pointed out that objectifying a person is one of the first steps taken when someone wishes to commit violence against another person. Therefore, these ads are basically fostering a social atmosphere where it is okay to dehumanize women, to value them only for their appearance, and that seems extremely dangerous to me.

The objectification of women is a problem that extends way beyond just advertising--it pervades all of our mass media: movies, tv, and music. And why does it pervade our mass media? Because it works. Because we've accepted it as normal. It's no fluke that the cosmetics industry is a $1.9 billion dollar industry with around 3% growth a year and fantastic profits or that the diet industry rakes in $55 billion dollars a year (as of 2006) and is still growing. It's not a coincidence that rates of eating disorders in adolescents are rising. It's not solely the ads that are responsible for this, but the message--that gets reinforced constantly by the media and often by our own peers--that our worth as a human being is directly related to how well we fit the images we are bombarded with daily. Like she said in the video, we may walk out the door and see that what is being presented is impossible to obtain but that doesn't seem to stop us for striving for it anyway as the statistics I presented above show.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/an-older-generation-falls-prey-to-eating-disorders/?hpw

Women have eating disorders at a rate 10 to 1 over men.

But it's nothing. Ignore the facts. Pretend something else is going on.

Call it attempted censorship by an ugly feminist. A culture of victimization by whining women.

I don't care. Because unless you actually spent even ten minutes imagining what it is like, I repeat myself -- shut the fuck up. You don't know what you are talking about.

I'll also repeat myself -- it is horrendous that this trend is spilling over towards men.

>> ^Stu:

It's always feminist who complain about it. See the trend? It's women bitching about women. You ever see men bitching about men? No, because we bitch about women because they never shut up about other women. Whens the last time one of your buddies walked up to you and said, man I wish I had his ass...Exactly. I'd down vote this bullshit if I could.
You can't fix stupid. You feel good about yourself. Great for you! Want to get an eating disorder? Great! Thin out the gene pool.


Cleaning out the gene pool is my job, asshole.

It's always feminist who complain about it. See the trend? It's women bitching about women. You ever see men bitching about men? No, because we bitch about women because they never shut up about other women. Whens the last time one of your buddies walked up to you and said, man I wish I had his ass...Exactly. I'd down vote this bullshit if I could.

You can't fix stupid. You feel good about yourself. Great for you! Want to get an eating disorder? Great! Thin out the gene pool.

There is nothing that a little marijuana doesn't make better. Pain, insomnia, eating disorders, eyes, depression, hyperactivity, even sexual problems.

I guess if you are a paranoid schizophrenic it may be bad.

Calling eating disorders "stupidity" is really uneducated.

This is a sad view of what more and more teens and adults go through. It's not just girls either.

This is an issue that deserves sensitivity and respect.

I didn't think of that. It's fixed now. Thanks!


>> ^Yogi:
I thought this was the whole documentary...misleading

>> ^jonny:
Are you being intentionally obtuse?

No, I have an eating disorder and I'm rather sensitive about it. I still think I'm as acute as can be though.

She seems to have an eating disorder.

Yes he does. He's definitely among my favorite artists. Nice sifts, by the way.

In reply to this comment by dmaze:
Ted Leo rules. FYI this song is about eating disorders.

Ted Leo rules. FYI this song is about eating disorders.

Some observations after watching the video.

-He doesn't say anything resembling the comment you've quoted above.

-His use of 'we' is inclusive of society as a whole, not limited to himself or any race.

-He speaks of the growing economic disparity, but does not limit it to African Americans, and does not personalize it.

-Anorexia is an eating disorder, and probably isn't the best comparison to race or social class.

-I imagine even Mike Huckabee said some kind words about MLK today.

Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these.