At the end of the day, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that John McEnroe, Tennis' infamous bad boy, probably just wanted to say something inflammatory to get attention, but he completely and utterly crossed the line in

his comments to reporters

. Not only does he speak with derision of female athletes, he condescendingly remarks upon the state of the female athlete today as if they are children in need of his advice.

Pathetic.

Even though McEnroe undoubtedly speaks for himself, I think his words speak volumes of the way female athletes are perceived in a larger context throughout our society. Said McEnroe:

They shouldn't be playing as many events as the me. The women have it better in tennis than in any other sport, thanks to Billie Jean King. But you shouldn't push them to play more than they're capable of.

Let us just forget for a moment that McEnroe is the speaker. There is general prejudice in those words that propagate common myths about women,  female athletes in particular. The most prominent of which is the notion that women can't physically compete at the same level as men. McEnroe speaks as if women playing tennis have encroached on his turf, are threatening his sacred world. Ahem, Mr. McEnroe, your privilege is showing. And the pretentious and degrading suggestion that somehow women are  equal enough bleeds through his commentary, as if he's telling female tennis players to be grateful for what they do have.

With the words, "you shouldn't push them to play more than they're capable of", McEnroe reasserts the common stereotype that top female athletes cant perform at the same level as men, aren't physically able to compete in the way men do, and can't physically match up with men. All of these stereotypes have been disproved, yet many (probably most) people still believe them to be true- certainly McEnroe does. The truth is, women are capable of doing many things and just because women have been excluded and prohibited from professionally competing at the level of John McEnroe, doesn't mean they are not capable of doing so. Indeed, if given the chance, there is no doubt female athletes can adapt their game to the level of their male counterparts and thrive.

"They shouldn't be playing as many events as me", said McEnroe. Well excuse "them", for "they" just want to play tennis; "they" just want to have the same opportunities you had. This sentence is particularly jarring because McEnroe believes he (as a representative of all great, male, tennis players) should be the gate keeper to what is and isn't okay in the world of tennis. To him, female athletes are a separate and lesser group that need to be kept far from the traditional male tennis world.

According to McEnroe, women have it good enough, better actually, than other, sexist, sports. Thus, they shouldn't complain- they should just take their lumps, follow his rules, and shut up . I can't stand this attitude- many men and women reflect this type of thinking. Women are not equal in sports, as in the larger context of society, as McEnroe's comments so clearly reveal. Yet, so many people think that just because things for female athletes are better than they were say, 25 years ago, that women should just be grateful and not complain.

This damages the ability of female athletes to earn the right to make the same amount of money as male athletes, compete at high level for lucrative contracts and recognition, and for businesses to invest in legitimate women's sports ventures. Whether John McEnroe believes it or not, his comments are reflective of common misconceptions of female athletes and their "place" in American sports culture.

LaPrincipessa | Twitter | Email

(Posted at Women Undefined)

( Source )

Something about Kong Hyo-jin (공효진) got me all hot and bothered last week. And no, I don't mean her lingerie photoshoot for Calvin Klein.

Rather, it was her ads for Uniqlo (유니클로), all over Busan at the moment. Surely, I thought, the creative team could have anticipated how their ads would look on the side of buses, and designed something that didn't look like she was literally squashed into them?

But then I caught a subway train on Line 2, every carriage of which was decked out like this:

And suddenly I realized that her squashed appearance wasn't an accident:

Still, what's the big deal?

Well, just try it for yourself. Assuming that you have, and that your neck no longer hurts, then now you too may be wondering why her head was placed so awkwardly. Moreover, why is it overwhelmingly women that have this "head cant" in advertisements too, albeit not usually tilted quite so much?

( Sources: unknown )

But as long-term readers will recall, I actually already discussed sociologist Erving Goffman's sexism-based explanation for that back in February, and so my original aim here was just to pass on further evidence of the sociological pattern. But the more I looked at the ad, the more I liked it despite myself, and I wanted to know why.

One possibile reason, I thought, was Kong Hyo-jin's luxuriant, flowing hair, another recurring theme of advertisements. Combined with her hands on her hips, it reminded of this ad with Kim Ah-joong (김아중) especially:

( Source: unknown )

And in particular, the wind effect:

…makes it look as though whatever she is looking at (presumably a male viewer) is powerful enough to nearly blow her away while she marvels at him and waits for his approach. She doesn't look like she intends to act, but rather like she hopes to be acted upon–sexual but still submissive.

As discussed in detail here. But of course that wouldn't apply to all cases of women with windswept hair in advertisements, and so I did a little investigating. And just guess what I found was #1 in "The 13 Most Common Female Courtship Signals and Gestures" in my Korean edition of The Definitive Book of Body Language (p. 290):

Basically, that says that when women see a man they are interested in, the first thing they tend to do is start touching their hair, as raising their arms allows them to more easily give off pheromones via their armpits. I'm surprised that it doesn't also mention that it would also serve to thrust out their chests a little too, and that as women tend to have longer hair than men then touching it also shows off that secondary sexual characteristic; but it does note that even women with short hair do it, so that latter may not be all that important really.

The head cant though? It's more complicated, and for a little while I confused it with number 7 on that list (pp. 293-4):

But which is not actually referring to the head cant, but rather how women will raise their shoulders and look at the object of their affection while he's preoccupied, suddenly looking away when he looks at them (which in turn makes him secretly look at them afterward, according to the book). Apparently, the round shape of their shoulders is suggestive of breasts also, which is not as ludicrous as it sounds considering breasts themselves evolved (to such a disproportionately large size for primates) through looking similar to buttocks.

Still, I did know that a tilted head showed interest in something or someone though (sexual or otherwise), and sure enough I soon found this (pp. 231-2):

Apologies for lacking the time to properly translate all of the above scans; if anyone would like me to, I'm quite happy to later in the week. In the meantime, it says that in addition being an expression of interest, tilting the head also serves to expose the neck, the obvious submissiveness of which is exaggerated by also having the effect of making the person shorter and/or smaller, which is quite the opposite of standing up straight to emphasize our height when we want to compete or fight with others in some sense.

Finally, it notes that it is often seen on women in advertisements, although it doesn't say why. Upon reading that though, I finally realized what many of you probably knew all along: Kong Hyo-jin is in that pose because it's sexually appealing to men, as easily confirmed by this, this, and this article on dating advice, and that's why I was drawn to it I guess. Hell, I still like it!

Still, that doesn't mean it isn't problematic. Or rather, that seeing it so often on women in advertisements isn't; after all, there are many many more ways to appeal to heterosexual men, some quite the opposite of looking submissive, so it's strange that that would be emphasized (and, related, why you find women taller than men in ads much less than in real life). Moreover, why is it designed for a male gaze too, when presumably the intended consumers of the women's clothes advertised are women?

But I started this post because Kong Hyo-jin's pose looked so strange, and just because it did ultimately prove to have a logic is not to say that women in advertisements aren't still frequently placed in some bizarre, awkward poses nevertheless. Consider the other Uniqlo advertisement in the series for instance. First, on the bus:

( Source )

Next, on the subway:

And finally the full length version:

Now, despite deconstructing advertisements for over 3 years, just like everyone else in a developed country I too am exposed to 500-1000 advertising messages a day. So some common advertising themes I just simply get used to, a sure sign of which is that I originally thought that this was the more normal and natural-looking of the 2 advertisements, and hence had no intention of writing about it.

But in fact, it's anything but "natural".

Again, I invite you to adopt Kong Hyo-jin's pose for yourself for you to see how strange it really is.  The crucial thing is her arms: one folded over the other, it reminds me most of a gesture that you'll frequently see on new students and colleagues and so on on their first days at schools and workplaces. Just like on the woman below on page 103 of The Definitive Book of Body Language again:

As I mentioned here, when someone is nervous then their instinctive reaction is to protect their exposed fronts using whatever comes to hand, be they bags, books, folders…or of course their own arms. Meeting people with folded arms doesn't exactly create a warm and open first impression though, and so with the other partially open, hanging arm, they try to that at the same time.

Yes, it is indeed an awkward compromise, but even having read the 1989 edition of Body Language above at the age of 13, and being perfectly aware of what I was doing (and why) thereafter, nevertheless I still couldn't stop putting my arms like that on my first days at all 6 of my high schools (in 3 years in 3 countries). It really was such a powerful instinct.

In Kong Hyo-jin's case however, while I guess the expression of nervousness does accentuate an image of submissiveness, it's just too much of a compromise to expose one part of the body – the neck – while protecting others with the arms. It also contradicts her "bashful knee bend" too, which again I discuss here.

But why? I confess I don't know, and so now seems as good a time as any to throw the floor open to readers, who may see something that I've missed and/or have alternative explanations!^^

(Posted at The Grand Narrative)

(Posted at Sour Grapes)