Sexism and the exploitation of women. Have we come a long way, baby? I think not.

We do not live in a civilized society. I was in San Francisco today, I went over for the Mayday rally and I have more to say about that in another blog. It wasn't a pleasant experience to say the least; initially anyway.

First off, I was sort of accosted by a group of young people, I'll blog about that later.  It was scary enough that I left the area on my bike and headed up towards the Civic Center where the Mayday rally was supposed to be. On the way up I passed this bus stop and saw the photo to the left.  Now this is in a country where shitloads of people talk about family values.

But this picture, placed there by a US corporation that sells clothes, or maybe women's underwear that is probably made in Bangladesh or Vietnam, caught my eye.  I have to admit that the shape of the woman's body did attract me somewhat but that's what it is supposed to do; I like women's bodies.  After a second or so of lusting I got mad.  I mean, I like what I see, and there' is nothing wrong with it in general except when it is commodified. It is designed to manipulate me.

I understand that most women don't and never will look look this. And many of them that try will suffer terribly for doing so. But for heterosexual males a woman's body is a nice thing, let's face it. I suppose it's a nice thing for a lesbian too.   If you love a person and want to be with them, it doesn't matter if you both are 250 pounds apiece, you find each others bodies sexy, that's just the way it is. But this ad is not a good thing. It is a violent ad.  It portrays women in a way that is not healthy and treats them like objects. And it's not just the butt or what the old guys at work used to call, the "back porch".  It is the look on her face, it is everything about this picture.  I don't like it. It makes me mad that they put young men in prison for rape and for going too far, but what does this teach a young man? It is a disgusting picture.

Sometimes I think despite the increase in consciousness about racism in this country, when it comes to women the backwardness and violence is incredible.  I remember at work two guys that I knew, a black dude and a white guy and they were both talking about women. The tone and language of the conversation was pretty bad although I know they probably didn't treat women the way they talked, they just thought nothing of it.  I walked up to them and I knew that the white dude was weak on the race question and the black guy was a bit of a nationalist and also weak when it came to immigrants and the Chinese, they had conflict in the past .  "Sort of found a bit of common ground have you?" I said to them. "Having a laugh pissing on women?"

The point I am making is that if you take the picture above, if it was a picture, a gross caricature of a black person or Chinese or Latino, it would not be tolerated today.  But because it is a woman, it's OK.  I am not a prude. I think that the woman's body in the picture is delightful; it is nice. If we were friends and she wasn't an idiot and I wasn't married to someone else I can't say I'd ignore this person. I don't like that this human being is sold to us like a car or a pair of pants. And the damage it does to young men and particularly young women is devastating.

Women are workers. They work inside the home and outside it. Women provide trillions of dollars in unpaid labor annually maintaining the family.  Look at these statistics:

Women account for 70 percent of the world's people who live in absolute poverty. Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, produce half of the world's food, and yet earn only 10% of the world's income and own less than 1% of the world's property. Worldwide, a quarter of all women are raped during their lifetime. Depending on the country, 25 to 75 percent of women are regularly beaten at home. Between 10% and 50% of women report they have been physically abused by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Over 120 million women have undergone female genital mutilation. Women hold only 12% of parliamentary seats worldwide. Women account for 2/3rd's of the world's illiterate adults, and girls account for 2/3rd's of the world's children without access to education. 

Women are our comrades in the struggle for a better life, for freedom.  We cannot possibly build a better world for all human beings if we do not address the problem of the super exploitation of women. I always liked women---my mum was one.