retrosexism

Back Cover of the Montreal Mirror, 20(45) 5 May-11 May 2005:

The Fine Print: Meet Melissa. Melissa won an unofficial wet T-shirt contest held at the American Apparel apartment in Montreal. Her prize for winning was a travel mug from McGill, and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Now Meet the New Sexism:

Some blame the popular and successful laddism of certain men's magazines. Others, the feminism of the 'new generation' in the "wake of the second wave." The usual explanations - 1) irony, parody, pastiche; 2) postfeminism; 3) nostalgic return to old-school ("Isn't it quaint?") iconography; 4) so-hip-it-hurts empowerment and reclamation - don't seem to cut it, and seem to shut critique down before it can even begin. If one criticizes, they're stodgy and humourless. If one doesn't, they're complicit. What to do about retrosexism when it's not cool to bitch?

Now, American Apparel is not the first, only or last to use this "See? It's not sexism, the chicks dig it!" style of marketing. They're just the ones who pissed me off this week. What's unsettling about AA is that they actually tout themselves as an ethical manufacturer who hopes to "break the paradigm" of exploitative labour by doing it anti-sweatshop style. In fact, their FAQ #22 reads: American Apparel is striving to pioneer a movement in human rights and environmental responsibility through groundbreaking methods and policies. Wet T-shirt contests at their local Montréal pad fall under that category, right? They're all about levelling the playing field, right?

Reminds me so so much of what I've read of the New Left movement of the late 60s. "We have a revolution to take care of here! Sure, ladies - join in! Oh, could you grab that steno pad and a pen honey? And is the coffee on?"

Judith Williamson has written a wonderful piece for The Guardian on what has been called the 'post-ironic sexism':

In the world of sexual ads, the dominatrix, the bitch and the whore wield power over men; in the real world, a British woman is physically attacked by a man she knows every six seconds. This suggests that, rather than embodying sexual liberation, today's fetishistic imagery provides a language for expressing both sexism and, perhaps, the pain and rage of a sex war which at heart is about social, not sexual power. These ubiquitous images translate the social as sexual: showing gender power struggles nakedly in every sense. And yet we have deprived ourselves of the language to analyse them as such. Our unwillingness to name sexism in the present has on the one hand encouraged it to develop as a form of nostalgia, and on the other, allowed it to flourish in a sexualised form which we perceive as daringly cutting-edge. Alongside these phenomena we have the interesting fact that mainstream social advertising has concocted an impossibly female-dominated world which makes sexism, both the fact and the concept, appear extinct. The reality of sexism is, however, still with us: it is time to resuscitate the term and renew the critique.

Read the entire article at the Guardian Unlimited: "Sexism With an Alibi"