Feminist Professors Slam Selfies For "Perpetuating Classic Gender Roles"

Authored by Toni Airaksinen via Campus Reform,

A group of feminist professors recently discovered that Instagram selfies taken by women in college can reinforce “traditional gender roles.”

In a study led by Mardi Schmeichel, a University of Georgia (UGA) professor specializing in “feminist theory,” a team of professors analyzed 233 selfies that were posted in 2013 within 24 hours of the first UGA football home game of the semester.

Schmeichel and her team analyzed these selfies to see if they represented “the idealized symbol of the southern lady,” which they note is an aesthetic trope that “has had significant and enduring consequences on notions of femininity in the South.”

This symbol of the southern lady, they argue, is typified by students’ formal wear, soft and flowy dresses, a significant amount of jewelry, and clothes that emphasize “feminine curves without revealing what might be considered ‘too much’ skin.”

Bright red lipstick and white teeth are also considered emblematic of this southern aesthetic, Schmeichel argues.

After analyzing selfies posted in the time surrounding the first 2013 UGA home game, Schmeichel found that 25 percent of women who posted photos embody this harmful aesthetic.

“The clothing, makeup, posing and editing used in the southern lady images work together to achieve a hyperfeminine gender performance that differs significantly from the images of women in the other selfies,” Schmeichel laments.

 

“In the southern lady images, attention to a traditionally gendered performance has been emphasized,” Schmeichel writes, lamenting that “the southern lady images that circulate in these selfies reinscribe a traditional femininity organized around/on a binary.”

She also notes that students’ embodiment of femininity can be troubling.

“The celebration of traditional femininity has been is [sic] a vexing concern for some feminists, who have interpreted it as a rolling back of hard-won progress to eliminate women’s association with these rigidly gendered and often marginalized subject positions.”

 

“If we are committed to destabilizing gender binaries and working toward a world in which bodies, and images of them, are not traded as capital, then there must be some attention paid to ways in which women’s [Instagram] practices and behaviors can get in the way of these goals,” Schmeichel concludes.

Campus Reform reached out to Schmeichel and her team for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

To Increase America's Productivity, Ban This...

Aside from short-lived booms in the 1990s and 2000s, US productivity growth has averaged just 1.2% from 1975 up to today after peaking above 3% in 1972.

As we detailed previously, adjusting for the WWII anomaly (which tells us that GDP is not a good measure of a country’s prosperity) US productivity growth peaked in 1972 – incidentally the year after Nixon took the US off gold.

The productivity decline witnessed ever since is unprecedented. Despite the short lived boom of the 1990s US productivity growth only average 1.2 per cent from 1975 up to today.

If we isolate the last 15 years US productivity growth is on par with what an agrarian slave economy was able to achieve 200 years ago.

As we reported last year, users spent 51% of their total internet time on mobile devices, for a total of 5.6 hours per day snapchatting, face-booking, insta-graming and taking selfies.

It"s an everyday sight - people using their phones while sitting on the train, waiting for a bus, or even having a meal with their partner.

What exactly are they doing the whole time though?

When it comes to social networks, Verto Analytics may have the answer. The most time spent in the U.S. on a "mainstream" app is the 899 minutes per month of the average Facebook user.

The social network whose users invest the most time though is a networking app for gay, bi, and curious men - Grindr. WIth a huge 1,040 minutes on average, that"s over 17 hours every month.

In third place, Growlr is also a networking/dating app for homosexual men. The average user here spends 665 minutes per month.

In eighth, Twitter"s struggles are again highlighted, with only 176 minutes in Q3 2017.

Figures refer to usage across all platforms, not just mobile.

You will find more statistics at Statista

So, maybe in their next wide-ranging study, economists could include a test group of workers who leave their phones in a locker at the beginning of the work day, and try to measure how much their “productivity” improves. So, while every effort can be made by Ivory Tower academics to solve the problem of American worker productivity, perhaps it can be summed up simply as "Put The Smart-Phone Down!"

New Report Shows Selfies Kill 800 Percent More People Than Cannabis in the US

Nothing captured the mindless hysteria of prohibitionists quite like the 1936 film Reefer Madness, where pot users were portrayed killing people, committing suicide and going mad. Eighty-one years later, some people – such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions – still push falsehoods and propaganda about cannabis.

The war on drugs is too profitable to the State and the corporatocracy. Big Pharma funded propaganda campaigns in 2016 as nine states were voting whether to legalize medical and/or recreational cannabis. Thankfully, the propaganda had little effect, as all but one state voted for freedom.

Part of the prohibitionist strategy is to try and convince you that cannabis does bad things to people, and can even cause death. But, unlike other drugs – including alcohol and cigarettes – no one has ever died from ingesting cannabis. There is not a single recorded fatal overdose from cannabis.

In fact, responsible use of cannabis, including oil extracts, can be quite beneficial to the health, which is why states are continually adding to the list of allowable health conditions treated by medical cannabis. We are only just beginning to understand the body’s endocannabinoid system and how cannabis can be used to stimulate this system to reduce inflammation, which is thought to be the cause of many diseases.

Despite the fact that cannabis does not kill people and does not cause the harmful effects of legal drugs, it remains a Schedule 1 controlled substance – the most dangerous category.

To illustrate the absurdity of the situation, it helps to compare cannabis to things that actually do kill people. Among them: icicles, cows, scalding tap water, vending machines, lightning strikes, pencils, hot dogs, jellyfish, fireworks, champagne corks and coconuts.

READ MORE:  "You"re My Favorite Victim" Woman Reports Rape to NYPD, Cops Show Up and Sexually Assault Her

A relatively recent entry on the list of odd things that kill people, albeit rarely, is the selfie. Smart phones and a lack of awareness are combining to tragically end the lives of a surprising number of people.

Between March 2014 and Sept. 2016, there have been 127 recorded selfie deaths around the world, according to researchers from the U.S. and India. The vast majority – 76 – have occurred in India, while eight selfie deaths have been recorded in the U.S.

Selfies cause 800% more deaths than cannabis in the U.S.

But government still feels the need to put cannabis in the most dangerous category of controlled substances under strict prohibition. Government will lock you in a cage, tear your family apart, take away your money and possessions, and even kill you for possessing a plant that has been used by humans for thousands of years.

In fact, the most dangerous part about having pot is the chance of police killing you over it or hauling you to jail. The Free Thought Project has documented many instances of this happening.

19-year-old Zachary Hammond was shot and killed at point blank range by South Carolina police officer Mark Tiller in a sting operation over a few grams of pot. 17-year-old Jonathan Santanella was shot and killed in his car by Texas police officer Rey Garza, who thought he saw some pot in Santanella’s car.

The stories are numerous and tragic, and they underscore the injustice of the drug war. Cannabis never killed anyone. It is a medicinal plant with so much potential to heal, if only government would get out of the way.

'Killfie' Nation - India Dominates World's Selfie-Related Deaths

The trend of taking death-defying "killfies" is taking its toll in a Darwinian sense... on India!

The rise of smartphones and social media has paved the way for selfies to become a popular pastime for young people around the world, but as Statista"s Felix Richter notes, sometimes people hunting for the perfect self-portrait get carried away though and put themselves and sometimes others in harm’s way. Tragic as it is, researchers from the United States and India have found that taking selfies in dangerous situations cost at least 127 lives since March 2014.

The researchers scoured the web for news articles reporting selfie-related deaths in an effort to raise awareness and help prevent further injuries or deaths as a consequence of reckless selfie-taking. Ridiculous as it may sound, there are many ways to harm yourself while taking a selfie. The cases found by the researchers include several people falling from great heights, drowning or accidently shooting themselves while taking a selfie with a gun.

Photographers appear to be particularly careless in India where the researchers found the most reports of selfie-related accidents by far.

You will find more statistics at Statista