Currently viewing the tag: "Sexuality"
An excellent video from a really rad 13 year old. Check it out. She rocks.
“Propaganda and policemen, prisons and schools, traditional values and traditional morality all serve to reinforce the power of the few and to convince or coerce the many into acceptance of a brutal, degrading and irrational system.”
- Maurice Brinton, “Authoritarian Conditioning, Sexual Repression, and the Irrational in Politics“
We Weren’t “Born This Way”:
A Critique of “Born This Way” by Lady GaGa
by Liam O’Ceallaigh
Last Sunday (13 February 2011) at the 2011 Grammy Awards, Lady GaGa (Stefani Germanotta) began promoting her new album and single Born This Way. Early Thursday morning I wrote a short article “You Weren’t “Born This Way”” critiquing the song and its message, as well as how Lady GaGa arrived at the Grammys (i.e. carried in an egg by horned slaves/servants).
My criticisms were straightforward: (1) rather than being “born this way”, our differences are largely the result of socialisation and choice, and (2) how it is unacceptable for someone who claims to support social justice to arrive at the awards carried by horned slaves/servants.
The article has been passed around a bunch and I’ve received a lot of interesting feedback which has prompted me to pen this followup piece. Hopefully this answers or clarifies some of the questions, concerns, and criticisms people have raised. If after reading this piece you have other comments that weren’t answered or addressed, then please, by all means, e-mail me (butterflywalking (at) gmail (dot) com) or write a comment below.
Hate capitalist alienation and consumerism not those who manage to find love despite it!
For some Valentine’s Day reading check out Alexandra Kollantai’s great pieces The Love of Worker Bees (available through Amazon.com), Red Love (online), and A Great Love (online). Alexandra Kollantai was a member of the Bolshevik Party during the Russian Revolution and wrote extensively on socialism, democracy, and women’s rights and power. Another great reading is Marxist psychoanalyst and social theorist Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving (online for educational purposes).
If you want a slightly longer (though absolutely excellent and beautifully written!) book, I can’t possibly recommend Myths of Male Dominance: Collected Articles on Women Cross-Culturally by Marxist anthropologist Eleanor Burke Leacock strongly enough. Not widely available since its publishing in 1981, it was recently republished by U.S. socialist publisher Haymarket Books.
From 26 June 2009
.
“Fill your desire for something long, juicy…”
Burger King has really outdone themselves this time. The print advertisement for their new “Super Seven Incher” sandwich features an wide-eyed, blonde-haired, pale-skin, red lip-sticked, blushing woman with her mouth open, about to have Burger King’s Super Seven Incher put in her mouth. The text below? “It’ll Blow Your Mind Away”. Apparently subtlety is lost on them. But perhaps we can learn from this. Countless ads verge on being this explicit, but are masked in “subtlety” which allows the silence of critique. These ads on the other hand, leave no room for dispute.
This ad could be used as an incredibly powerful teaching tool when discussing gender equality with people convinced that women’s oppression is “over”. It’s become increasingly clear, from the assassination of Dr. George Tiller (the women’s healthcare provider in Wichita, Kansas), to the rampage at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, to the murder of a nine year-old Latina girl and her father by Minutemen terrorists, to the recent post-election surge in gun purchases, that the seeds of a very strong far-right-wing revival are underway. In its sights: gains made around women’s rights, rights and services for oppressed people, especially people of color, immigrants, and working people, and consciousness shifts around LGBT rights.
Poor taste or complete ignorance?
Candy Magazine is put out by Luis Venegas – “born in Vitoria, Spain, on 13th March 1979″ and “based between Madrid and Barcelona.”
James Franco is an actor. Francisco Franco was the fascist dictator of Spain who crushed the Spanish revolutionaries, installed a fascist dictatorship with himself at the helm, murdered and tortured tens of thousands, forced hundreds of thousands of people into exile, and aided Hitler’s Nazi regime.
Socialist Politics:
Recommended Readings
