Tag: feminism

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.

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.

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.