Um, yeah, no kidding

Did anyone really believe that Reebok's special Easytone sneakers were going to firm legs, thighs, and butts? Well if you did--congratulations, you may be getting some money.
Reebok has settled a class action lawsuit for $25 million. A Federal Trade Commission investigation found that claims of what the sneakers could do were slightly exaggerated--as in they couldn't be proven.
I knew though sneakers were trouble from the start. I mean, did anyone else note the irony? In order to get a hot ass, you have to wear ugly shoes. That seems wrong. Also, the commercials were particularly egregious in terms of the sexualization of the female body.
But it's kind of too late now. Those rocker shoes are all over the place. Sketchers has their own version. Not sure if Sketchers will be on the hook as well. It's possible they aren't making the same kind of claims about what the shoes can do. They have chosen not to comment on the settlement.
Reebok is standing behind its shoes though. The settlement does not require them to take back their previous claims; they just can't keep making them--the claims. I think they will keep making the shoes.
No study has found that the shoes make any difference. My surprise was that there was no evidence the shoes do damage. Anecdotal evidence that I have not-so-painstakingly gathered suggests that people who wear the shoes end up with hips and knee and foot pain.

Yes there is an obesity problem...

...but tone-up sneakers for kids?? I'm sorry. For girls.

Yep. Sketchers is making and marketing its tone-up sneakers, purporting to tone your flabby ass and thighs, to children.



And what is up with the costumed hot dog and cupcake??

The New WTA Campaign

The WTA has launched its new advertising campaign: Strong is Beautiful.
And the NYT ran an article about said campaign.

Let me note first that this is not a post with one coherent point or thesis. It is largely a collection of musings about the campaign.

First, strong is beautiful. I said that the other day when writing about Sam Stosur.

But is strong alone beautiful? Probably not if you look at the WTA campaign. Makeup and flowy dresses or bandeau bras which reveal a lot of skin are featured in the ad campaign (which consists of several themed videos and still photos). Many of the players were not recognizable to me. In part this is because I have not been following women's tennis as closely in the past year or so. So the newcomers are not as familiar to me. But I do know who Dominika Cibulkova is and I have seen her play--in Paris actually when I went to the French Open a couple of years ago. And I would never have guessed, from her picture in the campaign, who she was.

Last year a similar campaign came from the WTA--it was called "Women who Hit Hard"--and the current campaign still includes some of those photos and videos (like the one of Kim Clijsters). And at the emergence of that campaign Dr. Nicole Lavoi over at One Sport Voice got a lot of crap for calling the campaign soft core porn. And though I didn't agree with that exact characterization, it wasn't hard to see the problematics aspects of the campaign (which was also featured in the NYT). But I thought of Dr. Lavoi's analysis when I saw the picture of Gisela Dulko in which she kind of looks like a dominatrix. And given my cynical nature, I have a problem believing that the producers are completely unaware of that.

I do appreciate the use of many different players, including Marion Bartoli and Svetlana Kuznetsova who do not have the traditionally beautiful feminine bodies (like say Victoria Azarenka has).

And I was really shocked to see the photo of Francesca Schiavone which, upon first glance, made me think I was looking at a slighter Rafael Nadal. She appeared very masculine in the photo. So I was pleasantly surprised the WTA included it. Are they throwing us queer gals a bone with that one? Are they seeing that this isn't just all about the male gaze?

Maybe. Maybe not. WTA CEO Stacy Allaster said that women's tennis is forging ahead despite the poor economy. She announced that two new multimillion dollar sponsorships are forthcoming. Are they selling these beautiful but strong players to sponsors so they can sell them to us? Probably. Will it work. Hmm....

One final thing. One of the 30-second spots is called Sugar and Spice and follows the childhood rhyme about what little girls are made of. Caroline Wozniacki does the voiceover and adds that things like sweat, fury, and grit are also what little girls are made of. One of the ad execs on the campaign said the commercial subverts the sugar and spice construction.

I don't really see that. It's more additive than subversive. And it's a little bit mandatory: you have to be all these things: sweet and spicy and strong and gritty. Let's note that this version of womanhood is largely constructed on a white, Western, middle class woman (yes, I know Serena Williams and Li Na are both featured in the campaign--but their presence alone does not negate the dominant message which is geared toward a white, Western, middle (to upper) class audience).

Huh?

Listening to NPR this morning, I heard (more than once and right now as I type) an advertisement for ESPN. Specifically the ad is for ESPN's early round coverage of the Master's, which starts next week. Why is ESPN advertising on NPR? And, I suppose, given NPR's recent troubles, they can't really turn down ads even if they do promote an anti-woman event/institution (Augusta National).

My letter to the NCAA

The the letter below is one I just sent to the NCAA who, if you have not heard, recently accepted banner ads from Focus on the Family. Thanks to the amazing work of Pat Griffin and other advocates who got the word of the offense out quickly, the NCAA has pulled the ads from the website.
But there have been plans for CBS (you remember--they're the station that aired the Super Bowl with the infamous FoF Tim Tebow ad) to air more FoF ads during March Madness. There is no word, according to Griffin's blog, about the status of these ads. So I emailed the marketing and publicity department at the NCAA and told them 1) good job taking down the ads (I didn't bother to mention the mistake they made in accepting them in the first place) and 2) please don't run them during the tournament next month.
You can do the same by emailing (pmr@ncaa.org) or calling (317-917-6762 )their public relations department.

-------------------------------------------------------

I was quite pleased to just learn that the NCAA has decided to take down the banner ads from Focus on the Family that have been running on your web page.
I hope that you will continue to refuse ads from Focus on the Family, including during the televised coverage on CBS of the men's NCAA basketball tournament next month. Such ads are clearly in violation of the organization's own policies on advertising. Additionally ads from a well-known and unabashedly anti-gay organization harm the coaches, administrators, and student-athletes who identity as non-heterosexual. And it also harms the reputation of the NCAA. I find it hard to believe that Dr. Myles Brand would have ever let this happen under his leadership. Please honor his vision and his work and continue to uphold standards of justice and equity for all members of the NCAA.

Will the new WNBA campaign work?

Doubtful. If it's aim is really to draw in male fans by pointing out to them how stupid their own comments on the women's game are (like there's no action, the league is stale, women are not physical enough, etc.) my suggestion is to try again. Not that all the reasons why men don't watch women's basketball are not completely ridiculous. They are.
But getting the WNBA's stars to verbalize them in the new ad campaign, called Think Great, probably isn't going to make many men--or many people who are not already fans--stop and say "gee, they're right. Women can take charges and play a physical and exciting game." Some of us already think women's basketball is great. And those who do not are not likely to be convinced.
The ads themselves do not especially bother me. I think they should have more action shots in them. I think when a player says "women can't take a charge" the ad should cut immediately to a player taking a charge. There are action shots but they are at the end which emphasizes the players talking and not the players playing.
Of course this seems to be in keeping with the WNBA's tactics. Focus on the players; how nice they look, how well they speak, how well they learned to apply that eye shadow in rookie training camp--and people will come out to see them play. Um, no. People will go on the internet if they are truly only interested in how a player looks. Otherwise all this preening and presentation serves as further fodder for the naysayers: how serious can a basketball player be if she's thinking about makeup all the time? (And I am sure there are many different versions of this sentiment.)
I feel for the WNBA--it's a lousy catch-22-like position to be in. But they need to figure out a better way.

Nike tries again

Nike unleashed its new ad campaign aimed at women on Saturday. It's called ATHLETE and features world-class athletes talking about what being an athlete means to them. The new campaign that consists of television commercials, an internet component, print ads, and billboards was created after Nike found out that female athletes are tired of not being taken seriously because they are women. To address the problem the modifier "women" is absent.

Sounds good, eh? Sure. It addresses a major problem in the discourse on women's sports where unmodified "athlete" equals male in most written and spoken coverage.

But like other Nike campaigns (i.e. If You Let Me Play), this one falls short of anything that might engender change. Because Nike is selling a false empowerment; an image of equality that doesn't come near addressing actual inequality in sport.

A forthcoming billboard that features Serena Williams with her arms crossed wearing a t-shirt that says ATHLETE (reproduced in the Times article) has the caption: are you looking at my titles? Well, no, you're positioned in such a way and along with the tagline it's impossible not to look at your breasts.

So Nike is still selling sex appeal. Not surprising--a previous campaign that featured only women's body parts also was selling sex under the guise of empowerment and self-love.

But this campaign fails to address what real inequality is. There is no mention about the fewer number of opportunities women have in comparison with men; how much less they receive in scholarship dollars; the amenities they do not receive that their male counterparts do; and of course the lack of coverage of women's sports.

Taking away "women" from women athletes and pretending that we're all the same--that it is just about skill as Alvina Carroll says in her portion of the ad--simply erases the problems. Language is crucial in these discussions, of course, but Nike and some of the athletes participating in the campaign, use it in such a way that the difference between male and female athletes is made obvious but there is no space in which to talk about how the difference has been constructed and used against athletic women and why.

I was particularly disappointed in former pro volleyball player Gabrielle Reece's piece which begins: “Are boys bigger, stronger, faster? Yes." She goes on to say that this is not all that matters in sport. But the first part of her statement is damaging in that she presents this as an unequivocal truth and makes it seem that all boys are stronger, faster, and bigger than all girls. Yet Reece herself is bigger, stronger, and faster than many boys--and men!

The Times article only showed and reported on some of the comments made by the athletes for the campaign. I am interested in hearing and seeing what others have said and done.

Good commercial

So often I seem to be complaining about offensive and/or exploitative commercials. But tonight I saw a good one.
During the finals of the men's Hockey East tournament, One Hockey ran the best ad for youth hockey. It starts in a classroom where a boy is methodically wetting a piece of paper, and slyly pulling a deconstructed pen out of his sleeve. He quickly turns and executes his spitball in the direction of a seemingly unsuspecting girl.
But she is able to block his shot with her notebook which she whips up in front of her face at the last second much to the shooter's amazement.
Why is the girl so quick? Because she's a hockey goalie, of course. And in the next scene we see her don her helmet and play with other kids (gender unknown).
Made me smile which was a good thing given that my alma mater, UNH, lost the championship.

Here's some progress

Listening to the radio in the morning can be a dangerous thing. Bad news and offensive commercials can easily put me in a foul mood. Not a good way to start the day.

Usually I listen to NPR but my (somewhat) local affiliate is running a rather obnoxious fund drive so I had on my local alternative radio station which I find a good compromise between public radio and commercial radio.

And the commercial I heard this warm almost made me tear up a little. It talks about a man who is a baseball fan and former player and general lover of the game and now his daughter is memorizing stats, and learning history. But she wants more. She wants to know the best stance for hitting it out of the park and other techniques. Well, the ad says--sign her up for the new local Cal Ripken League. The league is open to boys and girls ages 8-12.

I know, of course, that they let girls play baseball and have since Little League got sued in the 1970s. But girls have always been the exception in youth baseball--especially with the rise of strong youth softball programs. [Even though the games are not the same!!!]

But to hear an ad that targets girls who play baseball or want to play baseball; to present this as normative and not exceptional--well it was just great. I may have to show my support in some way this spring.

Stop shining those breasts in my eyes

I found this product on one my favorite women's athletic wear sites, lucy.com under the accessories section. I was aghast. In part because I read the product name first: Low Beams and then the catchline at the bottom: Headlights are for cars and ended with the smallest font that actually told me what the product was: Nipple Concealer Adhesives.

The product itself is not inherently bad--I think. I haven't really thought through if women should be wearing bandaids over their nipples. Are we trying to pretend that we don't have them--especially when working out? Are we only supposed to have nipples when we have no clothes on?

What is more troublesome is the way the product is advertised: equating breasts/nipples to car parts. I expected more from a women-centered company. Unfortunately I saw the product only after I had placed my order. But I do plan on getting in touch with their Customer Service department and letting them know the product is offensive and not what I expected from them.