Joe's Crab Shack (Commercial)

It's a brief commercial - 30 seconds, which I see during Law and Order, and have just seen it now, at 9.15 am on a Sunday on Channel TNT.

Three women - one black, one white, one Latino, each provacatively saying, "I'm doing....__________"

Then an old bald out of shape buy is shown saying "I"m doing all three." the clear implication being he's "doing" all three women.

Then the camera pulls back and of course what they're "doing" is eating the food at Joe's Crab Shack.

So yet another commercial using sexual innuendo to try to sell something.

It's nothing new, of course. And it's so pervasive that I suppose most adults who see it are immured to it by now. But teens? Just reinforces the stereotypes.

I was banned from Hannity.com yesterday. That's actually nothing new, they've banned me about six times now. And they never say why. That's what annoys me, and that's why I always create a new screen name and return.

So, a couple of days ago, somebody upset with Helen Thomas (a White House correspondent who is extremely old, who recently made deragatory remarks against Israel) called her a bitch, saying she had her uterus pulled over her head, etc. =

I pointed out - as I have pointed out on many occasions there, that I found this offensive. Disparage what she said all you like, but why attack her as a woman? Both LIberals and Republicans post on these message boards, and whenever they attack a male whom they don't like, they don't call them bastards, or refer to them dismissively because they are men. But with female polictians and reporters, happens all the time..... when they're not - like every adolescent on a sports board, saying, "I'd still "do" her."

I decided to take the bull by the horns this time and post in the Talk to the Moderator section about this. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of not posting a link to the specific post I was talking about, but I daresay it would have made no difference.

My post title was, "Racism Not Allowed, Sexism Okay?" Because of course you can't say the "n-word" on those boards, or say anything that the moderators might think is offensive to blacks. And there are certain names for Latinos and Hispanics that they are not allowed to use, although the mods do allow debate on the Illegals question (because most of htem are all for clamping down on it. As am I, come to that.)

Point being, I said that there was a double standard. Male politicians were not insulted in the same way female politiicans were.

The moderator came back with this comment. I paraphrase: "These are discussion boards and sometimes things are said that other people find offensive. Those who are easily offended should perhaps find a knitting forum."

In other words, a dismissive slap at me for being a woman. Ah, go sit with your knitting.

Then another moderator chimed in. A woman. Said, and again I paraphrase, "If you want equality [that is word for word] you can't be offended in stuff like this. After all women are more vicious about this than men. [And that's true enough.]

But that wasn't the point. Sure, in the wide world, men and women excoriate women politicians on a regular basis.

But this was the Hannity.com discussion forums, where civility was supposed to prevail (not that it always does).

Unfortunately, I have a bad habit of responding to these things immediately, instead of waiting a couple of hours. And invariably, after a couple of hours I've thought of exactly what I should say to make my case. But it's too late then.

In any event, I pointed out immediately that I didn't appreciate the dismissive knitting joke, and I stated that if it was okay to give offense to people and they wouldn't be able to go whining to the moderators to get me kicked off, that it would just be mano a mano between us, that was fine.

The moderator took offense at that for "attacking the members" and banned me. Hey, I was a member too!

In any event, after a week or so I'll re-sign on.

But of course this is systemic in the western world. Oh, don't misunderstand me. As a woman I have a 1,000% better life in the US than any woman in an Eastern country.

And I'm not one of those who thinks women should be allowed into all male clubs, such as that golf club debacle of a few years ago. Frankly, I thought the time the President of NOW spent on that particular cause could have been better spent fighting against the pervasive sexualization of TV commercials.

But what I find interesting is that the contempt of women is all-pervasive as well. Rush Limbaugh, with whom I agree on several counts, is still a male chauvanist pig, famous for saying, "The feminist movement was created to allow ugly women access to the mainstream of society." [Because, of course, Limbaugh himself is no prize, physically. But he sure does marry a lot of gorgeous women. Well, for that matter, and this is a post for a different time, a lot of beautiful women marry "ugly" men..... who are rich.]

As the one moderator at Hannity.com said, "Women are more vicious then men when it comes to insulting other women." Oh - I actually know that quite well. And that's got to change as well.

Why do they do it? I think it's a hold-over from our history. Up until the 1980s - that's about 6000 years of human history - women had no status except if they were married or had a male friend. They couldnt hold jobs, they couldn't own property, etc. If they didn't have a man, they were worthless.

So human nature. (Not female nature). You don't have power over your own life with a husband that you marry - not because you love him but because you have to go get out of your home, etc., is to look at all other women as the enemy, trying to steal your security from you.

You'd have thought this need to look at women in that fashion would have stopped in the 1980s and afterward, when women can stand on their own two feet and take care of themselves, but other forces are still at work to drive them down and persuade them that it's still only the approbation of a male that matters, and now in our more violent society women aren't only even verbally insulting women but they're actually attacking and killing them, too!

Well, the explanation is that we have de-evolved instead of evolved, and I blame mass media for much of that, as you will read in subsequent entries in this blog.