Marina Conner

Nike and the Rebranding of “Crazy”

This morning I watched the new Nike “Dream Crazier” ad and cried. Full out fat tears over a video with a run time of ninety seconds. On my second watch, my boyfriend came down the hall. I felt immediately embarrassed that I had been brought to tears, in my head I tried to search for reasons why I might be “so emotional.” My period doesn’t start for 2 more weeks, so I can’t blame PMS! But I was feeling that way not because my boyfriend came down the hall, demanding to know why I was so emotional, but because so many times that I’ve been emotional before I’ve had to rationalize why I felt that way. Nike’s ad came full circle in about three minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whpJ19RJ4JY&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0UzpOE3zcrSnacXdreBMu2wD5rZ9zMhwb06sNWcaDnnAMavY5BDkDCtWQ

I knew the ad dropped yesterday, I’d been anticipating it because Serena Williams is a serious girl crush, but I fell asleep far too early after a hard workout yesterday afternoon. I opened Twitter this morning and BOOM, there it was, first thing on my feed. I guess I didn’t realize what the ad was about, maybe it wasn’t mentioned in the hype beforehand, but just yesterday on a walk I talked with my boyfriend about why we call women “crazy” and why we don’t say it about men. I went to Google this morning to see if the search results would help me understand more. As it turns out, they exposed more of what I’ve been thinking about recently. See below.

Why do we call women crazy? Honestly, when I searched “crazy woman politics” I 100% assumed to see Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Since her rise to the spotlight last summer, anytime I hear someone talking about a “crazy” person in politics, it’s damn near always her. When I searched “what makes women crazy” it came to no shock a plethora of hormones, menopause, and moodiness came up in the search results. I laughed at the result from Thought Catalog “What Makes A Girl ‘Crazy’? 33 Guys Reveal The Biggest Red Flags” (spoiler, there are a lot of pretty normal behaviors listed there.)

We call women crazy for doing things men have been doing for a long time. And we do it because we feel threatened as a society because it’s still relatively new and breaks away from the status quo. Unlike civil rights, when it comes to “rights” to seats in politics, it really is like pie. More seats for women does equal less for men. With the ratio of men to women being nearly 1:1, it hardly seems like it’s asking too much for women to represent 50% of Congress, yet the House is made up of about 24% women and the Senate sits at 25%.

The big inspiration for this article was the Nike ad, and as promised, the comment section did not disappoint. Enjoy a few favorites below:

So much to unpack here, I’ll do my best to summarize.

I’ve never quite understood why we enjoy mens sports more than we enjoy women’s sports. I was fortunate to attend the University of South Carolina, a school with a very strong women’s basketball program. It was routine that the women’s games would be packed, and the mens games would have free t-shirt initiatives to get us to attend. Watching a women’s sport with competitive and elite athletes is just as exciting and invigorating as watching a competitive mens game. Try it sometime.

When men are emotional after big sports moments, we revel in their tenderness. How brave of him to show his feelings and excitement with us. We don’t extend that courtesy to women. Is it because women are more open with their emotions on a normal day? Why is it that as women we have to rationalize, to hold back our fury and excitement? Why is my brain programmed to come up with reasons why I was emotional this morning? I don’t want that, I refuse to believe that’s a natural reaction. I want to combat that every day and I encourage other women to do so, too.

Nike accomplished one big thing for me with their ad this morning: I’m no longer going to take “crazy” as an insult.

Tulsi Gabbard Has Some ‘Splaining To Do

Here’s a 10 Year Challenge for you: think about how problematic you were 10 years ago. I know this week I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’m going to start this article with talking about myself and reflecting on my own problematic past views. 10 years ago, there were lots of problematic things that I did, including but not limited to my use of too much eyeliner. Writing about my really problematic views is hard because it means exposing a more ignorant version of myself. The first view I had was that I was “okay” with people in the LGBTQ community, so long as they were acting straight around me. The second view I had was that it was totally okay as a white girl to say the N word, so long as it was only when I was singing along with rap songs. I know, I’m cancelled from the Democratic Party.

Oof, okay, that’s off my chest. The thing is, people do change over the course of 10 years. Until I got to know people in the LGBTQ community I was just mimicking a narrative around me that most people I knew shared. It wasn’t really my own. I thought it was totally okay to say the N word when I was rapping along with songs until someone pointed out that it was really out of line. I was mortified. Experiences are what make people learn and grow. I’m not that person anymore. I’m hoping in 10 years to not be this same person, either.

This week Tulsi Gabbard learned the hard way that who you were years ago can come back to haunt you. Gabbard issued an apology after a story broke that she previously worked for a group that supported gay conversion therapy. In her apology video, Gabbard states: “First, let me say I regret the positions I took in the past, and the things I said. I’m grateful for those in the LGBTQ+ community who have shared their aloha with me throughout my personal journey.” Honestly, that resonates with me. I understand that for myself it took spending time with people in the LGBTQ community to understand that they are seriously not different from me, they just have better skin. That being said, her apology kind of falls flat for me.

Never in my life have I thought that people in the LGBTQ community could be “converted” to be straight people. Maybe that is because my community that I was mimicking didn’t believe in it. Maybe it’s because my community had never heard of it. But I’d like to believe that it’s because even though at one point I thought LGBTQ people made me uncomfortable, I never thought they were fundamentally wrong. I also had those views at a younger age than Gabbard, who was 21 when she boasted about those views in 2002. It took her 10 years to finally make a statement that she supported the LGBTQ community in 2012 when she was up for election. Now, nearly 7 years later, Gabbard is apologizing because she is running for president. Apologies issued once you’ve been caught are seldom genuine. I can think of many times in my life (mostly in my teenage years) that I apologized for something I didn’t really feel bad about, just embarrassed that I was caught.

Our commenter hit the nail on the head for me and actually isn’t particularly problematic. Actually, I struggled to find a comment on the Facebook post by CNN that was problematic, but I wanted to tackle the subject anyway. It did raise the question about the Democratic Party and purism. The Democrats have a problem with ousting newcomers who aren’t “perfect” candidates. Sure, the Schumers and Pelosis and Obamas and Clintons of the Democratic Party can have all the flaws they want, but new blood has to be perfect and free of flaws. Their ideals must have been Democratic since conception, they can never have said the N word while rapping along with a song in the car. Hell, at the rate the Democrats vilify their new blood, I’m afraid any Democrat who ever stepped foot in South Carolina may be subject to a Huffpost headline: Freshman Congressperson Visited South Carolina in 2013: How Racist Are They Really?

Tulsi Gabbard’s past views are concerning. She has a lot of work to do to convince me that she ought to be POTUS and that she’s really “changed” for the better. That being said, the Democratic Party has to start recognizing that their base is not just democratic purists who have never had to grow because they’ve been perfect since conception. We all have pasts, we all have flaws, we’ve all grown.

Trigger Warning: This Article Is About Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AOC. I love saying her name. One, because it’s a nice name and rolls of the tongue well, but also, two, because her very name makes people really angry. I love saying her name around those who can’t stand her because their nostrils flare at the very mention of her. As it turns out, they’re usually the same people who get weirdly defensive when you bring up “toxic masculinity.” Probably no correlation.

This week AOC appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Always entertaining Colbert talked to AOC about her time so far as a freshman Congresswoman, especially about the dramatic waves she’s been making and wants to create in Congress. In a way that nearly only Colbert can accomplish he asked the burning question: How many fucks do you give? (Referencing the pushback she gets from other, more senior congresspeople.) AOC’s response? “I think it’s zero.”

The Hill ran the article reporting on AOC’s remarks with the title “Ocasio-Cortez: I give ‘zero’ f—s about pushback from other Democrats” which is definitely misleading. Never in the interview does AOC say she gives zero fucks. She does answer Colbert’s question with the quote mentioned above. Watch for yourself below.

So what did commenters have to say about AOC’s remarks and the Hill’s misleading title?

Irony is always kind of fun to run into. Sure, personally it can be a pain to encounter, but isn’t always kind of fun when someone thinks that they are better than you and then shoots themselves in the foot? Our commenter was picked for that reason alone. First and foremost, the correct word is “past.” Second, it’s really hard to believe that a congressperson would be unable to count. Third, in the big wide world of the web, why do people throw insults about intelligence when they could just…. I dunno…. look up something to actually insult someone about?

What is it about AOC that gets people so angry? Is it because she’s young? Successful? Attractive? Is it because she gets so much press time compared to her fellow freshman congresspeople? Because her popularity made a lipstick sell out online? In my research (in the comments of course) I’ve gathered a few choice insults: young, crazy eyes, inexperienced, naive, stupid. As a young woman starting her own career, I can tell you those are all things I’ve heard about myself in jobs so far. The agency I worked for reported last year that young employees are likely to not disclose their age so as to be taken seriously in the workforce. I’m guilty of doing it, not telling my coworkers my age unless they explicitly ask so that my opinions might be taken more seriously.

AOC gets all those criticisms that I attempt to dodge regularly in the comments below articles, from reporters, journalists, from her fellow congresspeople. But instead of shying away from her age or inexperience compared to her more senior peers in Congress, she runs boldly head-on into the firefight. People don’t like AOC because she is unapologetic for the things she cannot control. People don’t like her because she is not letting inexperience keep her from doing her job. It’s a chunk of advice we all ought to follow. As I write this I revel in all the things I wanted to get done at work that I shied away from because someone thought I wasn’t experience enough to take it on. You don’t get experience sitting on the bench. AOC has known that for some time.

At What Point is it OK to Make Jokes About Someone Dying? (Probably Never)

After a very small hiatus from writing sparked by mostly reasonable or otherwise deemed untouchable comments, I found a comment this morning that made me sit down and write.

Yesterday, Fox News host was made to apologize for an error on the part of Fox News: the network shared a graphic that suggested that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. (See above.) South Carolina’s The State reported the story yesterday morning after the apology had been issued. They included the following apologies:

“We need to apologize,” host Steve Doocy said, The Washington Examiner reported. “That was a mistake, that was an accident. We believe she is still at home recovering from surgery.”

“This was a technical error that emanated from the graphics team.” a Fox News spokesperson wrote in an email.
https://www.thestate.com/news/nation-world/national/article224855785.html?fbclid=IwAR3vI-EouPQq-Y5CtZcyRw5KBgCM7VwCVkiI24-Q9H8q9lbP8QPV9tlTMwU

After all the apologies, the issue was handled for me. Sure, I rolled my eyes that somehow it was a “technical error” and I scoffed at the “we believe she’s okay” statement, but otherwise it was handled in my eyes. Until I went to the comments where this articles commenter showed their belly. Oy.

So here I am, enjoying a perfectly normal morning. I felt like there should be more angry reacts to the comment than there were. I like to think of these as learning moments, so I decided to take a moment to discuss the title: when IS it okay to joke about someone’s death? The answer is: probably never. Probably is the word I want to fix on.

To talk about myself for a little bit, my sense of humor is dry and macabre. I often joke about my own death. My therapist says I’m really good at radical acceptance, which is nice because otherwise my therapist has a long list of things I could work on. To me, death is just something that is inevitable and totally normal and not something I fear because no matter what other plans I make that is the only thing I can guarantee is going to come my own way. The thing is, I only joke about my own death. Not my friends or loved ones, hell, not even political figures. See, it’s totally normal to talk about the death of someone, but to joke about it casts a gross light on the person making a joke.

Martin Luther King JR was murdered 50 years ago. Just because it’s out of reach for many viewers on social media threads doesn’t mean it’s okay to joke about. Justice Ginsburg is still alive, it’s not okay to joke about her death, especially as she recovers from lung cancer. So unless you’re talking about your own death, stay away from snarky jokes about the deaths of others.

Didn’t Federal Workers Save Up For A Shutdown?

The short answer to the question posed above is: no, we didn’t. But I’m a talker so I have more to say here.

This afternoon CNN shared a video featuring Victor Blackwell to their Facebook page in which Blackwell makes a plea for federal workers. Currently on day 29 of the government shutdown, some 800,000 Americans are being forced to live without paychecks. Just last week the first instance of workers receiving $0 paychecks rolled in. As of now, there seems to be no end in sight.

I’m going to get real honest about my life and self here. I am one of those 800,000 people currently living without a paycheck. Not because I’m unwilling or unable to work, but because my job shutdown with almost no notice. 2 days before the shutdown started it seemed like a continuing resolution would be agreed on. Even the morning before we all assumed we’d be coming back to work the next week. Boy, were we wrong. Our commenter writes a statement that I thought about federal workers until I became one: they never live paycheck to paycheck. Boy, was I wrong.

As promised, here’s some honesty: As an early career federal employee I make around $34,000 a year. Huffpost reported in 2015 that the average federal worker makes ~$84,000 a year, a staggering 50 thousand dollars more than I make. That $34,000 is just the pay that I make on paper, before taxes or TSP or insurance. My take home pay every two weeks is around $880 for a whopping $1760 a month. I live in an urban area with a crazy housing boom. With that crazy housing boom are crazy rent prices, the average rent for an apartment in my area is $1278/month. I’m fortunate for a roommate who I can split costs with. That being said, I also live about 25 miles from my job because that is the closest I can afford to live. If I lived closer to work my rent would look more like $1400/month.

So, should people like me be able to save up 4 months of living expenses? Or is it just iPads and fancy TVs? The truth is I do have a nice TV and a nice cellphone. They were both paid for up front, no payment plans. But I’m also locked in to a contract with both my phone bill and my cable bill. I can’t just have them “turned off” because I signed a year agreement so I’m stuck with these bills until August or forced to pay an exorbitant fee to be released. Even if I sold the phone and the TV I’d still have to pay for the service I’m receiving. “What about a side gig?” You might ask. I’ve taken a boat load of ethics training while working for the government. It’s not that easy. When I was down on my luck & bills last fall I had to get supervisory approval to get a job outside of my own to ensure no conflict of interest.

Living paycheck to paycheck is miserable. I often wonder how I did it before my WGI last year. Out there are lots of highly paid government workers who haven’t begun to think about a food bank yet. I’ve been sitting here for 4 weeks watching the promise of replacing my 11 year old car this year run down the drain with my savings. Out there is a federal worker still going to expensive dinners, not selling their spare furniture, but this federal worker and her 11 year old car just want to go back to work.

So Citigroup Technically Only Pays Women 1% Less Than Men, What’s The BFD?

In my ever extending list of reasons I’ve wished I was born a dude, the wage gap is always in my Top 3. We all know the staggering unadjusted statistic: women make just 78% of what their male counterparts do. It is a highlight of the women’s rights movement and mentioning at brunch almost always means the meal becomes a political battlefield.

This week major financial institution Citigroup released its own wage gap numbers, sending the internet into a frenzy surrounding the wage gap once more. The numbers at first will sucker punch you: women at Citigroup make 29% less than men. Thankfully for Citigroup and blood pressure everywhere, that number is the unadjusted number. Citigroup also acknowledges the adjusted number and boasts it proudly:

“On this adjusted basis, we found that women globally are paid on average 99% of what men are paid at Citi.”

Naturally, I found out about this press release via Facebook. Forbes shared the article which quickly gained tons of interaction, most people pointing out the headline Forbes chose (Citigroup Admits It Pays Women 29% Less Than Men) was admittedly pretty misleading. Amidst these comments came the inspiration of the title of this article.

So Citigroup pays women only 1% less for the same jobs in the same area, what’s the BFD? Truth be told, at first 1% didn’t sound like a big deal to me. 99% was an awesome number! Until I thought about my male coworkers (sorry, guys) and realized how offended I’d be if I found out they made 1% more than me. For a woman making $50,000/year, 1% of that pay is $500. $500 over the course of the year doesn’t really sound like much unless you think about what $500 can mean. $500 can be used for big things: multiple car payments or phone bills, groceries, getting ahead on mortgage payments or not having to play catchup so hard after the holidays. $500 (1%) is the difference between catching up or getting ahead of the game, the difference between an indulgence or not. Do we have to have indulgent moments in life? Not necessarily. But should we be denied them just because our bosses think John Doe deserves 1% more? That’s the BFD.

It was hard to not touch the wrap up comments by our commenter that “preferences…lead women to put less emphasis on career ladder climbing.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I know lots of stay at home mamas, lots of women who just prioritize anything over their own careers. But I also know in my own field there are men with less experience and less relevant degrees getting paid the same amount as me. That being said, just about every career woman I know is a go getter out to play the game. Please don’t patronize women and downplay the wage gap (even the 1%!!!) with your commentary. Women are out here to climb this dang ladder.

The Outrage Over Gillette’s “Toxic Masculinity” Ad Can Teach Us That We All Could Afford To Do More Research

If you’ve logged in to social media in 2019, you likely know the phrase “toxic masculinity” and have heard the roar on both sides surrounding it. In the last week the American Psychological Association released a rattling 36-page report on the subject, and Gillette stunned the country with its “The Best Men Can Be” rebrand. But, what is toxic masculinity? Is all masculinity toxic? Can you still be a man and purchase MACH5 products, or do you have to succumb to being a maybe-hipster who only buys from Harry’s or Dollar Shave Club?

First, what is toxic masculinity? When I first heard the phrase it was clear as day to me, but I think for men it’s definitely more abrasive to hear, and rightfully so. The phrase “toxic feminism” definitely ruffles my feathers- but more on that later. For the purposes of this piece I went to the only source we can all trust in 2019: Wikipedia. Wiki sent me to a page on a term I’d never heard before: Hegemonic masculinity. Turns out, I was about to become educated, too. I won’t lie, I was on a mission, so I didn’t read everything. But I did click down to what I was looking for. Per Wiki:

“Connell argues that an important feature of hegemonic masculinity is the use of “toxic” practices such as physical violence, which may serve to reinforce men’s dominance over women in Western societies.[3] Other scholars have used the term toxic masculinity to refer to stereotypically masculine gender roles that restrict the kinds of emotions allowable for boys and men to express, including social expectations that men seek to be dominant (the “alpha male”) and limit their emotional range primarily to expressions of anger.”

So what does this mean for just masculinity? Anything? Let’s find a commenter to help us discuss further.

As of this afternoon, this is the most interacted with comment on CNN’s “Why Gillette’s ad slamming toxic masculinity is drawing cheers – and anger.” As always, commenters identities are protected the best they can be, no names, no profile pictures, using the logic that anything you say online can come back to be discussed. Maybe even in a blog.

One of my personal pet peeves is when men say “not all men” to me when discussing gender issues. Especially the men that I know intimately and care about. Something about the phrase always makes me suspicious of the person delivering it. I know when I lie about something, I usually go out of my way to distance myself from it. If my boss asks me to shred documents and I forget to and then she follows up? “Oh yeah, I did that yesterday and then after that I did x and then after that X and I worked on…” you get what I’m saying. “Not all men” just triggers the same response in my brain. I know good and well that NOT all men are rapists, assailants, misogynists. Instead of telling me about all the bad things you personally haven’t done, why not indulge me in the times you intervened when your friend was being a creep? More often than not, that sentiment turns my male conversation partner away. I won’t try to figure out why.

Is “toxic masculinity” really prejudice? Honestly, no. It really isn’t. By definition, the phrase is not prejudiced whatsoever. Using the logic that Wiki provided us above, not all masculinity is toxic, and you’re not being discriminated against if someone’s calling you out on it. In the same way that “toxic feminism” can exist (looking at you, every woman who’s ever judged me for wanting to get married someday) it just takes some self recognition that you personally can have toxic traits and that you have an opportunity every day to work on them.

To wrap up this comment commentary, I’d like to tackle what is arguably the most bogus portion of this comment. “You would NEVER see a tampon commercial saying “don’t be a b***h” and then tying feminism to it.” Advertisements have long picked apart everything about women. Never does this ad by Gillette say “don’t be a dick” it says that men can be better. We can all be better.