<< 4. Is it sexist,
a. in the sense, argued by some, that *all*
eroticized pictures of women are sexist >>
I am personally not opposed to naked pictures of anyone (male or female) -- I AM opposed to how those pictures get used. Specifically, pornography gets used to put women in their place. At work, it is used to show women they should not compete with men, and in the home pornography tends to get used as an illustration of inadequacy since there are very few women in the entire world which match those types of fantasies.
Favorite story vis a vis sports illustrated. About 8-9 years ago I was at work (in the phone co. in my role as female technician in a primarily male occupation) and working my way through an econometric work book. About 5 feet away were three of my male co-workers drooling over the latest issue of sports illustrated. We were all perfectly happy in our own way. Enter the foreMAN. He walked past the three men reading sports illustrated and threaten to suspend me for reading non-work-related materials on the job. (Here I will use a symbol I usually avoid like the plague) -- :-). The three guys looked at the foreman in shock--i guess years of working with me has sensitized them ;-). Well, his vision of macho suspension lasted only a moment because I jumped up grabbed the sports illustrated, and (gasp) ripped a page, and pushed the foreman's face in it asking something to the effect of, "and is this fucking work related material?" I kinda backed the man off the floor with my hand which happened to get tangled up in his tie and my face in his face using absolutely un-lady-like-foul-language. We agreed to forget the entire thing.
The point being that pornography, in the foreman's opinion, was a male right- rite-entitlement, but a female reading something as stupid as economics was a violation of work rules. maggie coleman mscoleman at aol.com