W.E.L.L. Women Empowered and Loving Life
W.E.L.L. Around The Web
  • Home
    • Copyright Information
    • Logo Information
  • A Woman With A Vision
    • About Us
    • Mission Statement
    • Leadership Team >
      • Board of Directors
      • Program Directors
      • Chapter Leaders >
        • W.E.L.L. UNO Chapter Leaders
      • Committee Members >
        • Breast Cancer Benefit Team
        • Clothesline Planning Team
        • Fundraising Team
        • Grant Writing Team
        • Online Media Team
        • V-Day Planning Team 2012
        • Y.E.L.L. Team
      • Blog Contributors
      • Newsletter Staff >
        • Past Contributors
      • Positions Available
  • Programs
    • Breaking The Glass Ceiling
    • C.R. Talks
    • MOMS
    • Passionate Poetry
    • Pen Pals >
      • Tier 1: SC Inmates >
        • F.A.Q. Frequently Asked Questions
      • Tier 2: Pediatric Patients
    • Stitch and Bitch >
      • Metairie Stitch and Bitch
      • NOLA Stitch and Bitch
    • W.E.L.L. Newsletter
    • W.E.L.L. Book Club
    • Y.E.L.L. (Youth Empowered and Loving Life) >
      • Infants and Toddlers >
        • Activities and Events
        • Resources
      • Preschoolers >
        • Activities and Events
        • Resources
      • Elementary School >
        • Activities and Events
        • Resources
      • Middle School >
        • Activities and Events
        • Resources
      • High School >
        • Activities and Events
        • Resources
      • Young Adults >
        • Activities and Events
        • Resources
  • Service and Social Events
    • Service Events >
      • Annual Breast Cancer Benefit >
        • Our Honorees >
          • Cherie Unsworth
      • Clothesline Project
      • Stitch-A-Thon
      • V-Day >
        • Past V-Day Events >
          • V-Day 2011
    • Social Events >
      • Fill The W.E.L.L.
      • W.E.L.L.'s Annual Birthday Celebration
  • Newsletters Archive
  • Donate
  • W.E.L.L. Blog
  • W.E.L.L. Forums
  • Organizations We Support

Stalkers

4/14/2011

0 Comments

 
I have been scanning blogs today, and thinking about how I should maybe start one. That’s how much I’d forgotten about the W.E.L.L. blog-shame, shame, shame…with all the efforts on W.E.L.L. activities, I’ve forgotten the written word is where everything with W.E.L.L. started anyway. So, blog I must! 

This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f12gqM5tvvo) commercial is crazy. I want to stick a giant “THIS OFFENDS WOMEN” sticker on every TV that shows it and on the people at Virgin Mobil in general. 

Allow me to preface my following rant with this: I do not own TV. I have a television set, which is hooked up to my PS2, where I play Kingdom Hearts and God of War, filling the in-between-game-time with Netflix rentals. I do not even have basic channels. The basic channel for my TV is “off”. After recently joining a gym, I got to watch TV for the first time in years. Most of the discoveries I made (and am still making) about our mass media culture can be posts of their own, so today I will limit it to this commercial. 

I get that we are using contemporary culture for dark humor, but dark humor is at least funny when you’re drunk. This is not funny at all, and I drank a bottle of wine to check: not funny when drunk either. I think we’re missing a few basic ideas….

Stalking, in general, may be funny coming from a thin white girl who isn’t a threat, can be fucking terrifying when it is taken up by a big, ex-boyfriend who has reason to be angry. That is the number one way I’ve ever heard of people being stalked. Granted, I am not a scientist and do not have a pure sample to take my conclusions from, but really, what guy do you know that has ever been in danger-serious, no-joke danger-from a girl stalking him? Maybe embarrassed, or annoyed, but most likely they are full of shit and conceited, blowing it out of proportion when a girl is just calling to get back something she left at his place.  (I know there are exceptions to this statement, but since the commercial is aimed at the general mass of the public, I am speaking in terms of the general mass as well.)

Let’s examine what type of stalking we are talking about. In the travesty of a commercial linked above, we are talking about both physical and cyber stalking. Let’s look at some numbers provided by people paid to research, and who do not work for Virgin Mobil and have more pure samples than I.  73% of people being cyber-stalked in 2010 were women (http://www.haltabuse.org/resources/stats/Cumulative2000-2010.pdf) and they were usually being stalked by men. Thus, this commercial’s first offense is that it’s a drastic role reversal of reality. Still more insulting, the stats on physical stalking show 78% of the victim to be women, and 90% of the stalkers to be men (http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32457). Not just any men, but usually exes of some variety.

I’ll re-frame the commercial for us as we learn real facts together. Our image should now be an ex-boyfriend or ex-husband who is feeling less than great about his girlfriend ending things as the stalker, and a woman as the stalkee. The question that seems to press for me in this scenario is "so what"? What the big problem with being stalked? Following our wonderful paid research people, fear is a big issue. And not fear that the ex-husband will be checking their recent Tweets, but rather that they can’t leave at night, that they will be physically harmed, afraid to even report this abuse. The commercial does not show any physical or even hypothetical threat to the man in his house.

In our revised commercial, the stalker is not in a tree outside his ex-girlfriend’s house, checking her recent tweets, but is calling and threatening her well-being if she does not meet his demands. He is following her around, asking where she is if she doesn’t attend work or a class as she usually does. He’s sitting outside her house making sure she’s coming home “on time”. He’s making threats that he is capable of following through on. Even if the blonde in the commercial threatened the guy, he looks like he could probably fend her off. Reverse the situation using both of the actors in the commercial. Can she fend him off? It’s less funny now, isn’t it? It’s become more of a situation where you’d advise your friend/sister/mom/co-worker/daughter to call the police, hasn’t it?

Our new commercial might be something like this: Flash in with lightning. A fairly well-build middle class white male in his car, outside a suburban home after dark. Zoom in on his 5 o’clock shadowed face as he starts talking to the camera in a low voice. “Tracey thought she could just break up with me. Like we didn’t mean anything to each other! Don’t worry! Using my 90G phone, I can trace her exact location via her phone. I can monitor all her friends via her facebook account and see if anyone knows if she’s dating someone new. And I can send anonymous emails automatically every three minutes so she knows I still love her. And I will love her again. I will.” Lightning flashes. “Thank goodness my phone can do all this here! Because I won’t be going home again until I make sure she gets home…a phone that fast and multi-tasking! It’s crazy, isn’t it?!” And, scene.

That’s the commercial I want to see Virgin Mobil make. Show me that reality on my 10-inch HD while I’m on the treadmill, and try to sell me a high-speed phone 15 seconds later. The only selling point I can see is that it’d be a fast connection to the cops, which every stalking victim needs. Of course, that’s assuming the police will arrive, will be able to do something about the situation, that there are laws in place that will help the victim and not blame her, and that she had an upbringing that led her to be a self-assured, confident individual who feels justified in having her own space and protecting it fiercely enough to ask for the help she needs. Yeah…then I’ll buy your phone.

-Brit, 4/13/11

0 Comments

    Author

    Write-up soon.

    Archives

    July 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    January 2011

    Categories

    All
    Assertiveness
    Betty Friedan
    Brittany W
    Brittany W.
    Bullies
    Bullying
    Choices
    Clothesline Project
    Communication
    Cyber-Stalking
    Dualism
    Famous Feminists
    Gary Gautier
    Hermione Granger
    Honesty
    Individualism
    Jacob Danger Germain
    Lgbt
    Living
    Mindfulness
    Openness
    Peace
    Slutwalk
    Stalkers
    Stalking
    Tina Price Johnson
    Tina Price-Johnson
    War On Women
    Women

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.