Huge news from the NYT:
LeanIn.org and Getty Aim to Change Women’s Portrayal in Stock Photos
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER FEB. 9, 2014
SAN FRANCISCO — There is the businesswoman, wearing a suit and glasses and holding a briefcase. There is the mother, smiling as she pours milk into her children’s cereal bowls at the breakfast table. There is the multitasker, holding a laptop in one hand and a baby in the other.
These stock images are familiar to anyone who has seen an advertisement or flipped through a magazine or brochure illustrating working women and families. And their ubiquity is hurting girls and women by feeding into old-fashioned stereotypes, says Sheryl Sandberg, the Facebook executive who has become an advocate for women achieving leadership roles.
To try to remedy the problem, Ms. Sandberg’s nonprofit organization, LeanIn.org, is to announce on Monday a partnership with Getty Images, one of the biggest providers of stock photography, to offer a special collection of images that it says represent women and families in more empowering ways.
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Nancy M 2 hours ago
Now THIS is how to change the status quo!!! Get the big guys with a platform to lead the way and in images no less. Brava. If women realized...
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19 comments:
From the linked article:
"Ms. Sandberg said. “Do we partner into sexism or do we partner against sexism?”"
Or do we partner in undermining American institutions and paving the way for our elites to fleece us even more?
Seriously, women feel pretty empowered these days and are doing quite well. Boys and men are the ones who are falling behind.
Yentas Gone Wild
The "lean-in collection" is a laff riot and fertile pickings for pranksters.
To try to remedy the problem, Ms. Sandberg’s nonprofit organization, LeanIn.org
The fun part of being my age without using corrective lenses is that words sometimes turn into Rohrschach tests. Can't remember what the word was, but in a recent comment about the Upper West Side, some 6-letter word turned into "bagels". In this case, LeanIn.org turned into Lenin.org, as you might have guessed.
Shit, this is a field in which I once worked peripherally.
Gay guys are the ones who are the photographers, editors and scene managers for these photo shoots.
Thus pitting one pet constituency of the rent seeking left against another.
Sony Pictures has bought the film rights to Lean In. Can't wait.
Considering how many women are disgustingly fat these days, it really is "big" news.
the newly minted class of undeserving billionaires are ready to rises up and fix all the non-problems in society.
"Lean In" sounds like it should be the name of one of those bland tastless high fiber cereals designed to keep your digestive system regular.
Lean in and let us see your cleavage babe. ;-)
I been around a lot of stock images, and I looked at the Lean In images (even before Steve wrote about it!), and they don't look all that much different to me, other than possibly a higher percentage of women with prosthetics. Seriously, you think stock image photographers before this were all sexist white males from Georgia or something? You think that a scrupulous adherence to PC shibboleths hasn't been on the forefront of every stock photographers mind for the past twenty years, at least? Show me a stock photo of an office scene that isn't multi-cultural and I'll buy you a beer.
This is a response to a totally invented "problem" -- like all that racism "just under the surface."
I don't understand how these photos are particularly empowering. From checking out the gallery (http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?contractUrl=2&language=en-US&family=creative&assetType=image&p=leanincollection), the only things I noticed were more people with tattoos, fewer women in suits, and more crossfit gyms than other stock photos. None of those strike me as being particularly revolutionary and leaning in to anything.
Stock photos show too many women laughing at salad.
Won't someone please think of how this injures the self-esteem of the lettuce leaves.
And then, after these fiendish harpies bray their contempt at harmless salads, they EAT the salads.
Won't someone please think of the seedlings?
Now if we can just close the SAT score gap with new stock photos of African Americans with perfect scores everything will be at peace in America.
The Last Psychiatrist had a great post about Sheryl Sandberg.
Being an old, white male, I could be wrong, but most women also prefer to look at attractive women, not refugees from "Hoarding"
Oy
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2014/02/dylan_farrow_woody_allen_and_roman_polanski_why_i_chose_to_work_with_polanski.single.html
http://rafaelyglesias.com/blog/
Yeah, maybe they could show a women in a tight-fitting power-suit with low-cut blouse - the kind of outfit that phony women cops in phony TV cop shows all wear - nursing her no-father-required turkey-baster baby, while casually reaching out with her free arm to casually castrate some man with her bare hand. That would be empowering.
I been around a lot of stock images, and I looked at the Lean In images (even before Steve wrote about it!), and they don't look all that much different to me, other than possibly a higher percentage of women with prosthetics.
They're stock images. Were you expected avante garde art?
That being said, there are obvious themes in the gallery that differentiate it from your typical stock photo collection. It's mostly women, and they're mostly photographed either alone or doing something putatively "empowering" (e.g. weightlifting). The men are clearly beta males, and often downright effeminate. Most of the parenting photos show fathers rather than mothers. The women are uglier than average.
In short, these are stock photos from some feminist SWPL fantasy world.
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