More battered women in ads

Ok, so there was the hoax Benetton ad issue. But this one is, as far as I can tell, for real: computer ads featuring the victims of ‘computer attacks’. 

There’s also a promotional video as part of the ad campaign. The campaign includes both men and women with ‘computer inflicted’ injuries.

There’s discussion of it here, by a blogger who finds it offensive, and a response from the makers of the ads. The maker insists that the adverts are simply too ‘absurd’ to be offensive, but the blogger at ‘F-words’ (not to be confused with the F-word) writes that she finds the way that the ads appear to parody the domestic violence awareness adverts offensive.

I have to say, I don’t find the pictures, or the videos, particularly funny.

Related, news here of a Body Shop survey that suggests that attitudes amongst young people to violence in relationships are troubling -for instance, “1 in 10 teens think saying sorry makes it ok after they’ve hurt or forced a partner to do something. ”

No laughing matter.

Women and Voting

Not voting and not having one’s vote properly counted are two of the most important ways of being silenced (Hornsby, Langton, Maitra, McGowan) that there could be. This is true of both women and men, as has been far too amply demonstrated recently. But, according to this fascinating AlterNet article, there may be causes of such silencing particular to women that are worth looking at. These reasons provide excellent examples of the ways that various issues interact, including language, race, domestic violence, disability and childcare:

-Women may not realise that they need to re-register if they change their names upon marriage.
-Asian women are often neglected in voter registration drives.
-Women fleeing domestic violence may not want to appear on publicly accessible voter rolls.
-Women with children may not be able to get the babysitting that would enable them to wait in line to vote.
-Women are especially likely to be elderly, disabled, and in assisted living, and vulnerable to someone “helping” with their ballot in ways that they wouldn’t actually approve of.

If we want to get both women and men voting in the sorts of numbers that might make us feel like we’ve got a democracy, we need to pay attention to factors like these. We also need to pay attention to factors specific to men, who vote in even lower numbers.