The Academy of Image and Social Transformation
| By FEM - May 28th, 2006 at 5:01 am EDT |
I was running WAY late today to the conference because the doctor's office was inefficient (...and, I got lost and was quite late to the appointment...which I'm sure heightened the inefficiency). As I rushed up Bruin Walk to the law school building to assist in the tabling of our feminist activist fair, a lady gave me a purple folded sheet of paper and said, "In case you want a full fashion makeover, or something." She was nicer and less pushy than the usual people fliering, so I put the folded paper in my purse to be nice.
The fair was a bit slow for a while, so I pulled the sheet of paper out of my bag to pass the time. Lo and fucking behold...it pissed me off. After reading the entire advertisement I honestly didn't know what to do, so I laughed.
I thought about it a bit more and was insulted. Either 1) I looked so grotesquely insecure to the lady that she thought I would be evenly remotely interested in these services or, 2) she assumed that, shit, she's a woman, this must apply. I mean, it is a corporate advertisement, and it was insulting enough that they were capitolizing on media-fed insecurities and further commodifying female bodies, psyches and mental-health.
Excerpts:
HEADLINE: "Do a head-to-toe fashion and beauty outer makeover and a self-image and confidence inner makeover that will enable you to 'magically' attract all the Right Guys to you!" So...the gist of that seems to be that if we spend money to be aesthetically "perfected" we will then finally find ourselves attractive enough to have self worth, and thus lure in the men, since that's obviously a main, nagging goal/want we women have.
If that's not an indicator of what the rest of the double sided page was to say...I'll quote more for you.
"The purpose of The Social Goddess Transformation is to enable you to look good on the outside and feel good on he inside so you can attract all the Right Men and in doing so, create sexual, loving and intimate relationships."
Their vagueness in regards to the methods and approaches leads me to believe that they doll you up and say, aww...don't you now feel good about yourself? Why do I feel that way? The entire 2 page ad discusses the "first step" being external "beauty". While they claim to be able to, through their "deep and simple process actually eliminate a negative self image", the next three words are "in one day". The "in one day" part negates the solvency of their claim to erase the daily propagandic exploitation of women's bodies in nearly every sector of our society. No way on earth a 9-6 conference that is emphasizing "full fashion makeovers" so as to better enable the attraction of " all the Right Guys" is going to rid the women who paid the $999 to be there.
The idea that the self-confidence not only comes from without, but also that external allure magically brings the "Right Guys" to her feet, simply corroborates the media's images and claims that women ARE sex objects, around for men's admiration and praise, as well as the need for women to conform to the societal beauty norms in order to truly be "beautiful".
The part that bothers me the most is the corporation capitolizing on indoctrinated bodily insecurities in women, and using the promise of conforming women to those very norms that are oppressing them, and somehow claiming that it's a sort of liberation into "Social Goddess" status.
I hope to god that this was just a messed up advertisment and that the "Academy of Image and Social Transformation" chose the title and verbage for the advertisement in hopes of reaching out to a specific audience, and are really all about female empowerment and body security...that they're going to break down the insanely high standards women put on their own appearance, and on the appearance of other women--that they're using these workshops to deconstruct patriarchal constructions of dominion over the female, demystify the media tactics and socialization that create such deep rooted insecurities and discontent.
Sadly, I dont feel that's the case. We'll see if they respond to this post...since I just emailed it to them.
OK--sidenote. I read the version they send to the GUYS...and, it says absolutely nothing about improving their body image. Instead, the conference for the men is one that improves their pickup lines and methods of speaking to women. The goal for the men is to enable them to fearlessly approach women with the right words and language. Moral of their story: Let's make women more complacent and men more self-righteous. Yay.
Website: www.SexMoneyandHappiness.com (I know...)
The emails I found, if you want to email them to:
questions@sexmoneyandhappiness.com
alexander@sexmoneyandhappiness.com
preston@sexmoneyandhappiness.com
victoria@sexmoneyandhappiness.com
kyle@sexmoneyandhappiness.com
[This is the email I sent, with the blog attached beneath it...in case anyone is curious.
Dear Victoria, Preston, Kyle and Alexander,
As a feminist on a college campus, I wonder if I could ask for a simple breakdown of your motives and methodologies employed throughout these Social God(dess) Transformation conferences.
Why is it that the focus for women is on physical appeal to reel in the "Right Guys", yet the focus for men is on the most appropriate manipulation of language to draw in the girls? Another pressing question, what is the "amazingly deep and simple process that actually eliminates a negative self-image in just one day"? The negative self-image women have, especially the ones that are so negative they would invest in a $999 conference, have been ingrained into their minds for years, socialized into their behavioral patterns from birth because they grew up in this sex-crazed society that commodifies women's bodies, and capitolizes on the insecurities that very commodification breeds. Please, explicate the magic you seem to possess that allows you to cure women of these ails they've been burdened with since men took control.
Below is a blog posted on our blogsite. I am happy to post any response you have in defense of these "transformations".
The fair was a bit slow for a while, so I pulled the sheet of paper out of my bag to pass the time. Lo and fucking behold...it pissed me off. After reading the entire advertisement I honestly didn't know what to do, so I laughed.
I thought about it a bit more and was insulted. Either 1) I looked so grotesquely insecure to the lady that she thought I would be evenly remotely interested in these services or, 2) she assumed that, shit, she's a woman, this must apply. I mean, it is a corporate advertisement, and it was insulting enough that they were capitolizing on media-fed insecurities and further commodifying female bodies, psyches and mental-health.
Excerpts:
HEADLINE: "Do a head-to-toe fashion and beauty outer makeover and a self-image and confidence inner makeover that will enable you to 'magically' attract all the Right Guys to you!" So...the gist of that seems to be that if we spend money to be aesthetically "perfected" we will then finally find ourselves attractive enough to have self worth, and thus lure in the men, since that's obviously a main, nagging goal/want we women have.
If that's not an indicator of what the rest of the double sided page was to say...I'll quote more for you.
"The purpose of The Social Goddess Transformation is to enable you to look good on the outside and feel good on he inside so you can attract all the Right Men and in doing so, create sexual, loving and intimate relationships."
Their vagueness in regards to the methods and approaches leads me to believe that they doll you up and say, aww...don't you now feel good about yourself? Why do I feel that way? The entire 2 page ad discusses the "first step" being external "beauty". While they claim to be able to, through their "deep and simple process actually eliminate a negative self image", the next three words are "in one day". The "in one day" part negates the solvency of their claim to erase the daily propagandic exploitation of women's bodies in nearly every sector of our society. No way on earth a 9-6 conference that is emphasizing "full fashion makeovers" so as to better enable the attraction of " all the Right Guys" is going to rid the women who paid the $999 to be there.
The idea that the self-confidence not only comes from without, but also that external allure magically brings the "Right Guys" to her feet, simply corroborates the media's images and claims that women ARE sex objects, around for men's admiration and praise, as well as the need for women to conform to the societal beauty norms in order to truly be "beautiful".
The part that bothers me the most is the corporation capitolizing on indoctrinated bodily insecurities in women, and using the promise of conforming women to those very norms that are oppressing them, and somehow claiming that it's a sort of liberation into "Social Goddess" status.
I hope to god that this was just a messed up advertisment and that the "Academy of Image and Social Transformation" chose the title and verbage for the advertisement in hopes of reaching out to a specific audience, and are really all about female empowerment and body security...that they're going to break down the insanely high standards women put on their own appearance, and on the appearance of other women--that they're using these workshops to deconstruct patriarchal constructions of dominion over the female, demystify the media tactics and socialization that create such deep rooted insecurities and discontent.
Sadly, I dont feel that's the case. We'll see if they respond to this post...since I just emailed it to them.
OK--sidenote. I read the version they send to the GUYS...and, it says absolutely nothing about improving their body image. Instead, the conference for the men is one that improves their pickup lines and methods of speaking to women. The goal for the men is to enable them to fearlessly approach women with the right words and language. Moral of their story: Let's make women more complacent and men more self-righteous. Yay.
Website: www.SexMoneyandHappiness.com (I know...)
The emails I found, if you want to email them to:
questions@sexmoneyandhappiness.com
alexander@sexmoneyandhappiness.com
preston@sexmoneyandhappiness.com
victoria@sexmoneyandhappiness.com
kyle@sexmoneyandhappiness.com
[This is the email I sent, with the blog attached beneath it...in case anyone is curious.
Dear Victoria, Preston, Kyle and Alexander,
As a feminist on a college campus, I wonder if I could ask for a simple breakdown of your motives and methodologies employed throughout these Social God(dess) Transformation conferences.
Why is it that the focus for women is on physical appeal to reel in the "Right Guys", yet the focus for men is on the most appropriate manipulation of language to draw in the girls? Another pressing question, what is the "amazingly deep and simple process that actually eliminates a negative self-image in just one day"? The negative self-image women have, especially the ones that are so negative they would invest in a $999 conference, have been ingrained into their minds for years, socialized into their behavioral patterns from birth because they grew up in this sex-crazed society that commodifies women's bodies, and capitolizes on the insecurities that very commodification breeds. Please, explicate the magic you seem to possess that allows you to cure women of these ails they've been burdened with since men took control.
Below is a blog posted on our blogsite. I am happy to post any response you have in defense of these "transformations".
!
Comments are closed for this post.
Why?
Because I'm a man, and like most men, I care about "luring in" women.
Why do I do that?
Because as a boy, girls make me happy! (dangle dangle.)
In fact, studies generally show that 90% of how happy one is can be predicted based on their sex life.
If someone isn't caring about luring in the opposite gender, statistically speaking there's a 90% chance they're unhappiness waiting to happen.
And unhappiness is infectuous! (They've actually scientifically verified that - it really is infectuous)
Hence, I tend to look at women who don't care about attracting men (Or, to be fair, men who don't care about attracting women - though that's much more rare) as scary diseases to be quarantined.
After all, isn't that why the Middle East is such a cauldron of violence and strife? Not enough people getting laid?
And...I dunno about the mid-east strife. hehe. I DO know that my Gender and Islam class referenced a Hadith that says men get praise from god when they make their sex partners orgasm...so, I dunno if they're really hurting in the getting laid sector or not!
Aaaaamen to that. Not only do guys love that and not only do not enough girls do that, you're likely to get much higher quality men that way.
Heh.. my take on it is that they emphasize the passages and teachings that they want to follow, and that sexual insecurity is a really big deal there. Much of a man's honor is caught up in protecting his female relations from unknown males; One of the harshest insults in Arabic literally translates to "your sister fucks". If one were able to impose complete consentual sexual license in Arab nations (i.e. adults can sleep with each other whenever they choose without fear of violence), there would be complete social upheaval.
Heh, just replace "man" with "gender one is attracted to" to cover everyone.
OH EMMM GEEE JOE WHY MUST YOU BUY INTO THE HETERONORMATIVE OWNERSHIP PARADIGM