Watching Myself Watch and Read
My media consumption is mostly self-inflicted and well targeted, and I digest the things I see and hear through an instinctively feminist lens. As I make my way through my last semester of a GWSS major, I cannot stop myself from asking what is feminist and what is damaging to women and minorities as I consume media. I look at the roles people play, especially in ads, and I assess the ways that different types of oppression are manifest.
Over the past few days, like most days, I’ve spent a lot of time on the internet. I read the New York Times and Feministing habitually for my news and commentary, and I listen to M/NPR when I’m in my car (not very much over the weekend). As news goes, those sources are generally light on the stereotyping and offensive language (NYT lifestyle reporting is an exception, but I try to stay away from it). Feministing is a great source for commentary on the day’s sexist/racist events, and it’s a lot of fun to read the comment section and get other perspectives on issues like Hillary Clinton’s alleged crying or the HPV vaccine. Today I watched the Grammy Awards and found myself noticing a few things that I really liked. First, that a majority of the performers were people of color, mostly black. And second, that a lot of the night’s bigger awards went to female artists. It was wonderful to see the type of work and artists that were recognized. As far as the media that I didn’t intentionally seek out, I avoided quite a bit of it this weekend, but, as always, I am plagued by the “Working the corner” billboard near my apartment. The billboard is of transvesite man (dressing as a woman) with lettering that says “Working the Corner since (1980something)”, it’s for Figlio restaurant, attempting to make a pun out of their location at Lake Street and Hennepin Ave in Uptown. Instead of a clever pun, they end up with a truly offensive billboard that I see almost every day on my way home. To me, it suggests that transvestites are always sex workers, and that the sex trade is funny. It is not, and it frustrates me to see messages like this bombarding me on a regular basis, and to know how vulnerable I once was and many people are to the attacks.