A feminist bone to pick with BRANDED Magazine

My word, it has certainly been awhile since I’ve written a blog post. This time I write because I have a bone to pick—with Branded Magazine. Language is used to communicate a need, and I have to say that after two weeks, this article is still bothering me and so I need to communicate why—to you Internet hive and to you, Branded(I'm anxious for your reply).  

For those of you who live in Calgary you may have heard of Branded. It’s a new magazine –one that just debuted earlier this month. I picked it up, immediately drawn in by the cover art and flipped past a few pages of ads before I got to an introduction from the publisher and co-founder, Mandy Balak. She is holding up a sign that says, “The future of Calgary is in good hands #get branded”. Mandy Balak, I repeated to myself. Mandy Balak. Mandy Balak. Mandy Ba—I lit up! Mandy Balak is also the creator of “It’s Date Night”, an online resource for date ideas in the city of Calgary for whatever your feeling ranging from the “Athletic Date”, “The Stay At Home Date”, “The Pizza Date”, “The Group Celebration Date” and the adorably earnest, “The I’m Sorry Date”. I myself have used it many times, though thankfully not the “I’m Sorry Date” quite yet. I’m sure my time is coming. Already I’m excited. I read on. What I would call their “mandate” reads as follows:

“Branded is curated to show the young people of the city why Calgary is   awesome. We represent the future of the young people who are making a difference. We feature the voices that aren’t afraid to disrupt mediocrity. Branded is a representation of all that we can look forward to in Calgary and it is a platform for the new breed of talented Calgarians to share their stories…Calgary is bold, sexy, and thriving—and so are the young adults within it…Branded is the young professionals guide to an exciting, fresh and successful life in the city. We are here to celebrate everything Calgary is and everything Calgary is becoming. We share a common interest in city life, fashion, relationship advice and dining.” 

Again, I feel a certain elation because I perceive I am being included as an audience member or as a part of this thriving group. I am a young person, I think Calgary is awesome, I want to make a difference and damn it I am bold, sexy and thriving—why not! But more than that, I love the focus on locality and community building. Besides a strong mandate, the language used is casual, yet intelligent and full of underlying wry wit. And so I was in.

“Hear ye, hear ye!” I cried, “Let us have another locally and young person focused media outlet akin to FFWD, yet let you have a more engaging layout, but also be less concerned with news, and more concerned with leisure! Here he, here he!”

And I really did enjoy reading the magazine. I read about doing good in my hood and I learned about Evan Wooley (Councilor for ward 8). I learned about the Americanization of Sushi, body language and they have this very cool segment where every issue they’ll feature a photographer that captures Calgary in a unique way.

The dramatic turning point is when I got to the relationship section of the magazine. Before I confront the article I'm about to, I will say that other articles in this section of the magazine were not sexist or slut shaming. There were great examples of non-cliché couple costumes and a compelling article on how online dating is essentially turning people into expendable products. Squished in between these two pages that I looked favourably upon, was the relationship advice column titled, “He Said, She Said”.

Woman, 24, dating asks,

“I went on a first date with a 32 year old guy who is a firefighter. The energy was amazing. We hooked up on the first night.  After our date, he’s called me twice—but that’s it! No emails, texts, facebook messages…nothing. I have called him several times since the last time he called me but he hasn’t been answering. On our date he told me he as interested so I don’t know sorry understand why he doesn’t try to contact me now. I did email him to say that if he wants me to stop calling, then I wouldn’t appreciate him letting me know. He hasn’t replied. I don’t know if he’s just really busy with work or what, but I really like him. Why hasn’t he responded?”

I mean, fair enough, that’s annoying and inconsiderate. Let’s see what the hes and shes (alternating respectively below) have to say about it:

“Here’s the main problem, you didn’t really let the relationship evolve to a hot steamy level. You pulled the kettle before it was really hot by sleeping with him on the first date.”

“If you want to know if a guy really likes you, really wants you or actually wants to get to know you, then don’t sleep with him on the first date. Actually date him.”

“Here’ is a tip for women: If you want to hook up and have fun on the first date? No problem—do it! If you want a relationship that lasts longer than 20 minutes, you need to hold off. Make the guy work for it.”

“Next time he says he really wants to get to know you on the first date, smile, cross your legs and kiss him on the cheek and plan the second date.”

& my personal favourite,

“Who knows, if you hadn’t hooked up, there may have been a good relationship here. Your vajayjay is the carrot leading the donkey; don’t let him eat it too soon or he’ll just go looking for another.”

Apparently this advice is pulled from gendertalk.com. However, I looked it up and couldn’t find it in its archive. But that doesn’t seem so unusual because what you’re about to read is a pretty hetero concern. Gendertalk focuses on transgenderism, crossdressing and transsexualism. It discusses topics like transgender affecting marriage, gender activism, bisexuality, feminism, education, hate crimes, indigenous issues and so on. Even if I entertain the idea that this is from gendertalk.com, it is still not okay to have these ideas published without further context or comment from the writers. If I don’t say anything after a statement I have made –if it’s a quote from someone else—I effectively am advocating that statement.

If I said, “John Doe said that racism has long since been a non-issue in the United States”, and if I didn’t follow with “That’s a pretty reaching and incorrect generalization” everyone would be right in assuming that I believed that racism has long since been a non-issue in the United States.  On that note, Mississippi just abolished slavery in this past year.

This advice is wrought with backwards and misogynistic ideas. And by publishing them without further comment, these ideas are being endorsed as common sense advice. All of the advice given is basically saying the same thing: You shouldn’t have slept with him on the first date and it’s your fault the relationship isn’t developing. Next time close your legs and he will want you more.”

It is wrong to outright condemn sleeping with someone on the first date. If there was chemistry, there was chemistry! Go ahead: fulfill your mutual desires by expressing your sexuality with one another! There should be no prescribed rules on how to “successfully” date someone. Relationships are nuanced and complicated and cannot be boiled down to a standard “how to” instruction.  But what’s worse than trying to control the progress of a relationship, is how that responsibility and expectation is placed on the woman. (And if this were placed on the man, I’d be writing a different, yet equally impassioned post).

This woman is being blamed for the failure of this potential relationship, yet the man does not receive any blame at all. What is being reinforced here is the much-adored adage,  “Boys will be boys”.  We give permission for “boys to be boys” because we exempt them from responsibility. We whittle it down to their biology or their “natural” cognition. It is perfectly normal that a man would sleep with a woman on their first date. But if a woman does the same thing we wonder if she really thought it through. Was she thinking about her future in this? Women are not allowed to let go and follow their sexual instincts and desires in the same way men are. Women are taught to preserve themselves because women are taught that they’ll be somehow ruined, worth less or dirty if they don’t. This dates back to many still perpetuated myths on purity. By placing responsibility on women, we excuse men to do whatever they like without judgment. We set these rules for women to follow. And if they choose not to follow? Often, they’re met with shame. Branded, you’ve participated in publicly shaming this woman for expressing herself sexually because you’ve endorsed the idea that women must show restraint and men simply cannot help themselves. This idea damages men and women. It teaches women to equate their personal worth with their sexual conservation. It teaches men that they don’t need to learn how to be responsible, both sexually and morally. And what is being taken away is empathy—an ability for men and women to relate to one another honestly about sexuality. If the roles of sexual pursuit are being clearly divided, there’s no need to attempt to navigate that together. If the idea is that men pursue something that women in turn, “give”, when will the occasion be that men will “give” or women will “receive”? When do we stop talking about sex as something that is being taken?

There is an assumption here that a woman’s sexuality and purity are her power and should be used to manipulate men in the traditional, acceptable ways. Make him work for it, make him wait, suffer, sweat, beg for it. Build it up. And to have men say that this is what they want, suggesting that this girl failed some sort of test, that she wasn’t hard enough to “get” or “possess” and therefore wasn’t what, intelligent enough?—is appalling. Should a certain amount of time pass before women are allowed to express their sexual desires? Because apparently all men are whores who cannot help themselves, they only want one thing and once they get it they won’t want you anymore and guess what, it’s your fault as a woman that you let that happen. It’s your fault that you gave in and “let” him have sex with you. As if this was something that happened to you and not something you are experiencing at the same time. Women are not the gatekeepers of sex. Mutual desire and consent are the gatekeepers of sex.  Why are these men fetishizing a sexually manipulative woman? Women are being seen as trophies to be won. And boy, it should be a challenging trophy to attain or else it wasn’t worth having on his shelf. But on that note, it shouldn’t be too challenging, because that woman would be labeled a cold prude. When we view women as vessels that “hold sex” we view them as objects for pursuit and gratification. And I just do not understand what the turn off is. Why is it not attractive that someone you want to have sex with wants to have sex with you? Is it that she’s not relationship material because it happened so quickly/easily and she’s likely to cheat because she apparently just follows all her sexual desires on a whim? Men are taking themselves out of the equation. They must be reminded that they had sex too, and if they think it was too soon and they’d like to take things slower, they should say so because they are equally responsible in the act of having sex. There is no ground to blame a woman for not being more conservative, virtuous, pure or whatever other antiquated terms are still clearly permeating our discussions surrounding female sexuality.

So women, 24, dating, here’s my advice:  Maybe there weren’t actual fireworks for him. Maybe he really was busy. Maybe we all need to relax and calm the fuck down about the future of things or trying to prescribe how things should go. And if the reason that he didn’t want to see you again is because you slept with him “too soon”, he’s a prick who will milk that “boys will be boys” adage until something significant happens in his life that causes him to grow up into an actual man and empathetic human being.

And there was one piece of advice given by a “she” that I agreed with,

“If a guy really wants you; his arm could be ripped off by a pack of wolves, blood gushing, phone 20 feet away and he will crawl to his phone ad text you with his other hand.”

People acting out of love or desire will move mountains. And this feeling is not something we can create—it’s either there or its not. It’s ephemeral and hard to understand, but that is also part of its beauty.

Media is important. It shapes how we see and perceive our world and ourselves. We begin to define what is normal by comparing what we see around us. “Boys will be boys” is a popular saying, because we made it one. And so the only way to change that and to change the way we talk about sexuality is by talking about it in a different way and spreading new messages. We use media to spread our ideas and this kind of shaming shouldn’t be tolerated in conversation, let alone be published as advice.

It is hard for me to believe that in this new, contemporary for the young folk magazine that such an article exists. Should I be surprised? I do live in Calgary, after all, and for all of its growing, it is still a very conservative city. But I had hoped that I wouldn’t find such a page in a magazine geared towards young people who again have hopefully been educated on sexism.  I am further in awe that young professionals are writing this magazine and that a young professional woman is spearheading this magazine. Yet, the page stands. The advice published may have just been meant to titillate its readers. But what it is actually doing is perpetuating harmful ideas about sexuality. And maybe if I were writing to or about Cosmo, this wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference, but I’m hoping that Branded cares enough to be more conscious of how they speak about relationships in the future. And I’m hoping that we all become more conscious of the media and material we consume, that we are constantly questioning the meaning an idea holds and ultimately that we can see how our lives and the lives of others are being affected by these ideas and seemingly “harmless” words.