Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ora!ambar From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: does healthy, mutual erotica exist? Message-ID: Date: 25 Apr 91 17:39:02 GMT References: <1991Apr24.010420.18829@informix.com> Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz) Organization: Natural Language Incorporated Lines: 71 Approved: ambar@ora.com In article <1991Apr24.010420.18829@informix.com> uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (robert coleman) writes: In article muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes: -[...] Now, are the pictures of me any different -from the pictures of other women in there? Probably not, since Playboy -has a reasonably consistent style, from what I've seen. So, regardless -of my motives in posing, the published pictures are just like all the -other pictures. My motives are not visible in the picture. Actually, the text that accompanies each picture almost always gives details about the profession of the woman being pictured. The text *is* part of Playboy's representation of women. I must admit that when I have looked at the magazine, I have found the text accompanying the pictures rather uninteresting, so I don't know much about what is included there. This would certainly be a way of including the motives of the person posing. Of course, this, by itself, isn't enough, since if people either don't read the text or don't really think about it, it may not have an effect on them. So, some questions about this: 1. What sort of information is included in the text? 2. Do people generally read the text? 3. What sort of information/statement in the text would be likely to "further a feminist objective?" (I'll define this, for the purposes of this question, as changing the way someone views women in some positive way.) 4. Would the effect of this be affected (particularly lessened) by the pictures themselves? (I've always thought they looked more like ads than like pictures of "real people" - you know, lucite ice cubes, gelatin instead of drops of water...everything a little more perfect than I've ever seen in "real life.") 5. Does anyone know of anyone who has changed their opinions due to these pictures? (I was once told, on meeting someone, "you're a triple contradiction - an attractive female programmer." Sometimes, people will just decide that there are one or two exceptions to their stereotype, rather than deciding that the stereotype is wrong.) As a side note to all this, I read a story recently in the SF Chronicle about how Playboy was trying to do a "women from women's colleges" layout. Another one of those "stereotype-dispelling" things. The particular articles I read discussed two women from Mills College. One (who had graduated some years ago) had posed for this layout. The other went to the recruiting session. She described her experience there, saying she felt that she had been somewhat-subtly pressured into posing, even though she had not wanted to. She seemed to be concluding that this was what always happened, but I doubt that, since I'm sure that most people who go to Playboy are ready to pose, although they could certainly be drawn into more than they planned. Anyway, she called the other woman, who felt she was furthering feminism by trying to dispell the stereotype, and convinced her to withdraw her pictures. (Incidentally, a few years back Playboy tried to do a "Women of the Silicon Valley" pictorial; my understanding is that they did not get enough applicants, for whatever reason. Too bad; I guess the stereotype still stands unchallenged.) I certainly don't think that posing for Playboy is the only way, or even a particularly good way, of dispelling stereotypes. A better, and more productive, way might be to actually get more women into CS. This just made me wonder - has there been any effort to dispell the image of male programmers as being unattractive by having them pose nude? Is there still a Playgirl magazine, perhaps, to do this? Muffy