Um so there’s a rebuttal. A fake-tanned straw man of a rebuttal. http://t.co/yvlGmVxcda
— Roisin Kiberd (@RoisinTheMirror) July 31, 2014
Sad Inevitable rebuttal.
FIGHT!
Georgia Salpa, Catholic Guilt and Ireland’s Weird Misogyny Problem (Roisin Kiberd, Vice)
Sponsored Link
Roisin is right. The Irish media is just circling wagons after being laughed at by the Brits, as ever.
Because vice is a bastion of quality journalism.
Did you even read it?
I did read the article and whilst I have no truck with the position that using women in bikinis on Grafton street to advertise chocolate is absurd, sexist and a whole host of other things I don’t agree that it means Irish media or society is necessarily misogynist. I mean sure the argument can be made but I think that hypothesis needs more basis than the fact that Brendan O’Connor likes to slag off Irish models on page four of the Life supplement and run fawning interviews with them on page six all the while filling every blank space with Lingerie shots of the very same models.
Primarily however my objection lies with the tone of the article. As might be expected from Vice, it panders to its readership, takes cheap jabs at its subjects and is dripping with self loathing. This is purely intended for the Hoi Polloi that are Vice readers to have a good laugh at those they consider to be less sophisticated than themselves. It is very telling that despite mentioning Page 3 girls the Author fails to ask what Page 3 says about the British media. If the Irish Media is misogynist because it publishes photos of girls in Bikinis to launch Lotto draws how misogynist is a media that publishes topless women in a number of daily newspapers for no reason other than their readers like looking at breasts?
The Author also fails to examine any other possible reasons for the apparent success of these Photocalls. Reasons such as budget, its very cheap and easy to get a model and photographer in a public place. Instead the Author says it because Irish people are all obsessed with sex but too repressed to admit it or do anything about it. Something the libertine readers of Vice Magazine would find hilarious no doubt.
The article is snide and derogatory of Irish People, I hate that because its easy and lazy to knock “the plain people of Ireland” in such a way especially in an international context. I’m not sure whether the author has an inferiority complex or a superiority complex (perhaps both) but it’s clear that she is not very happy about being stuck on this island, It’s a shame that she has chosen to pander to Vice Magazine and its readers by having a swipe at the rest of us as a result.
Pet peeve but Hoi Polloi means ordinary people or the masses. Its not a description of the elite as its becoming increasing used to describe.
Well corrected!
Not using an extra article either. Check out Mrs Collegepants.
I don’t think the whole premise of the article is the Irish models, maybe re-read teh last two paragraphs for authors extension to Ireland as a whole.
Page 3 is openly intended as titillation; it’s ultrasoft porn. It doesn’t pretend to serve any other purpose. Per Kiberd, Irish people have a problem with porn, and so bikini models are titillation that is given the fig-leaf of respectability through use in advertising.
Therefore the example of Page 3 backs up what she is arguing. And in fact, Page 3 has actually been changed in Irish editions of The Sun so that the women’s breasts are no longer bared.
I don’t get the hypersensitivity about describing this as the entrenched feature of Irish media that it clearly is. If it makes people feel better, lots of the other big-boy countries are even more misogynistic in their media in their own special ways.
Indo is the reserve of those who have climed one step up the ladder socially, and feel that it is no longer appropriate to be seen fanning themselves with “The Sun”.
+1
I stopped reading Vice due to the edginess that would make a teenager roll her eyes. Sadly, this here specimen of common or garden feminazism is pretty typical of that magazine these days.
That being said, it’s not all bad. Only the hip, college newspaper-standard stuff they use to fill the gaps between their more substantive pieces is dreadful.
I love the word feminazi. It’s an interesting example of how extremism is constructed.
In order to be, you know, an actual Nazi you have to subscribe to the view that large portions of the human race are subhumans only fit for slavery (slavs for example) and death (jews are the obvious example here), that large parts of central Europe should be starved to death and filled with slave labour for a Aryan aristocratic class, that all political opponents should be killed, along with various types degenerates (homosexuals for example) and effete scroungers (artists). There’s more, but that is just a taste of their typical bat-shit-crazy views.
In order to be a feminazi, all you have to do is disagree with how women are portrayed in the media. As the poster above me comments
It reminds me of how a religious extremist is someone who flys a plane into a building, whereas an atheist extremist is someone who objects to public prayer in schools.
You’re right, but I wouldn’t worry about old Atlas. It’s just a nervous tic with him. If he doesn’t get writing the word in a comment section at least once, he feels a vague dissatisfaction for the rest of the day.
+1. Great response!
Nicely played!
Anyone who likens feminism to being a nazi is a person i want to avoid at all costs
As someone who has moved to Ireland from another country I have to agree with her.
Want to sell your product? Stick a ‘model’ in a bikini next to it.
Sure it’s just a bit of craic!
Is it not the same in the UK. Are we not just taking our cues from the British red tops?
Maybe in the Sun but not in every paper as it seems to be in Ireland. For example, the Metro over here doesn’t have a half-naked woman trying to sell/promote something but it tends to in Ireland.
Vice can be very hit and miss but that was a good article, there are some seriously weird attitudes to sex/gender in this country that are kind of ignored.
Anyway, great piece. the “rebuttal” was total gibberish though.
I also have to agree with the commenter on the vice article that a possibly bigger reason for the whole irish model thing is the absolutely atrociously shit state of the Irish marketing sector.
That comment might explain the quality of the media, it doesn’t explain the uniform decision to use half-naked women across the media as opposed to any other variety of populist pandering, eg. celebrities, kittens, babies.
Near-naked wannabes are probably cheaper than kittens or celebs
More that than anything else.
Very hit and miss, it seems to be made up of either reporters in some seriously horrendous places around the world giving decent insight into a situation. Or click bait artists who just write headlines about why something popular is actually the sh1test thing in the world.
Vice is s***e but I firmly agree with them on this one. For my sins I have done plenty of these photo calls with models and everyone knows it’s a joke but when you have middle aged dudes holding the marketing budget you give them what they want. By the way who wrote the piece on new stalk there is no author on the article. Is this DoB protecting his friends modelling careers.
The byline on New stalk quite clearly reads
Maria Brosnan
17:03 Thursday 31 July 2014
Not on mobile.
Extraneous yucks to be had from viewing the schedule of wall-to-wall Newstalk bloke-shows festooning the top of the page. There’s The Two, Yer Man, HIM, Funzo, Old Man Dog-Man and Pink Shirt of Sanctioned Spontaneity.
I’m just grateful we are spared the sight of Denis O’Brien and George Hook in their Speedos.
Please, there’s no need for that kind of talk, some of us are having breakfast here
I was incandescent with rage when that so-called piece of journalism branded a Star Bar as “a rather mediocre chocolate bar”.
How very f***ing dare they?
A Star Bar is without doubt the finest piece of confectionary known to humanity.
Anyone who disagrees is simply not entitled to an opinion and if I may go further, possibly be deserved of death by firing squad.
There! I’ve said it.
Couldn’t give a s**t about what they say about Irish models even though Georgia Salpa has got a fine set of fun bags.
Poor man’s Snickers
Nowhere near as good as a Mars or a Moro
known as Wunderbar in Germany, one if the few cadburies products available here – they are pretty special
Well you can fupp right off.
Double Decker, game over.
Am I the only the person here who hasn’t been indoctrinated into PC,fFeminazi hell?
So we have a misogyny problem?
Really?
Men will ALWAYS want to look at pretty women, in one way or the other.
And women will be drawn to it for their own reasons too.
Always. Sex sells.
Get used to it, it ain’t gonna change anytime soon.
And I’d be the first to admit how products are marketed with an Irish model standing on Grafton Street is tacky and ridiculous, but this means we are pack of misogynists?
Get real.
We have a bad taste problem, but that’s about it.
So we have a misogyny problem?
Really?
Well you did just use the term “feminazi hell”. Whether society has a misogyny problem is a big and complicated question. Whether you do became a really easy one after your first sentence.
“And I’d be the first to admit how products are marketed with an Irish model standing on Grafton Street is tacky and ridiculous, but this means we are pack of misogynists?”
No, but the ubiquity of 2 girls in skimpy clothing holding product type photo calls does mean that there’s an air of sexism and misogyny in the Irish advertising industry, and by not speaking out against it, we tacitly condone it.
It’s a common reaction amongst men, especially when one hasn’t been exposed to the constant background noise of sexism to assume that the angry reactions of feminists and allies that they’re accusing all men of being misogynysts – but they’re not. It’s a reaction to socitey rather than individuals.
Spoken like a true privileged white male. Congrats on being a stereotype.
When a woman is used to promote a product because “sex sells”, she is nothing more than a prop, an object. That’s all of her worth and contribution. So yes, that’s misogyny AND bad taste.
Indeed, how could any sane person reach the conclusion that the hot girl in swimwear at a marketing launch is just a prop.
Maybe that’s how a true mysoginist sees it, when I see a model posing regardless of what she’s wearing I don’t discount her as a human, just like if I saw a female barrister in the garb or a fishwife with blood stained apron.
Just because you can’t look past a pair of tats and see the full human behind it doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t, nor should it be the basis of what a person should or shouldn’t do.
Basically don’t judge a person because they’ve got a great body and aren’t afraid to use it. It doesn’t make them any less of a person.
Of course it doesn’t, and that’s not the point. It’s the person making the decision to use a woman in a bikini as a prop for the latest launch of a new accounting software or other random product. That’s where the misogyny lies. It’s a cheap, tacky, degrading move.
So, you’re just describing misogyny, rather than refuting the idea that we have a misogyny problem?
Atrocious shite that article, place any number of countries name instead of Ireland and it is the same shite! Go to any Car Show in the World any you will get the picture!
Absolute Bollix
So if loads of places objectify women then we shouldn’t buck that trend and do the right thing?
Not allow women with great bodies to be photographed beside products? That’s doing the right thing?
It’s their choice
I’m sick to death of “it’s their choice” as an excuse, espeically when it comes to the objectification of women. They chose to become models, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t want to spend their lives effectively being that one girl in the Benny Hill chase from the end of the episode.
There’s nothing wrong with someone wanting to make a living from their looks, but there is something wrong with the only living availible in that vocation being to stand around in short shorts or a bikini in the freezing cold pointing at something.
God its awful for them, no other avenue in life but to resort to hundreds of euro per hour to get your picture taken. Did you see the picture in the vice article where there is a woman in her knickers walking next to a man who is quite literally up to his chest in shite, covered in muck and sweat and who is going to do that job in all conditions for 9 hours a day. My heart bleeds for these poor put upon woman. Where is their Tom Ford I ask?
Do you really think they get hundreds of Euro an hour?
It’s their choice. Culturally and socially, it’s our values. And it’s misogynistic.
So, the article is shite, but it’s also correct, it’s just that other countries do it too?
She makes a lot of good points about the poverty within Irish media and the fact that this kind of tacky rubbish is acceptable in Irish society.
Reading her article, I must say being a “model” in Ireland sounds like a terrible, terrible job. To be fair, it really is the bargain basement of modeling so I’m hesitant to criticize modeling per se. The bottom rungs of most careers are generally pretty awful. That said, they are making an honest living, paying their taxes and not being a drain on society. I’d be slow to criticize the individual women. But her point that it’s embarrassing and wrong that these types of sexist ads are acceptable in Ireland is accurate.
Yeah, that’s exactly it. Nothing wrong with being a model, plenty wrong with the modelling industry.
Any serious model won’t stay in Ireland as the work isn’t here for them. Do we even have a fashion day not to mind a fashion week?
This article speaks a lot of truths IMO .
Vice is a UK mag? Clearly an attempt there to stoke the nationalistic fires and unite us and our girls against those evil Brits.
Recently I had to run a marketing campaign for the business I manage, I engaged with a Dublin agency and gave them the brief of what we were selling etc. A few days later they came back with their big idea. It was to book Georgia and Nadia and co and dress them in ridiculous outfits for a photo call *sigh*
I changed marketing companies and went with a radio campaign in the end.
A former employer was holding a launch for a thing they were doing.
The thing had some interest in certain fields of academia.
I was working on a stand explaining one public facing animated part of said thing.
I was approached by a masters student to explain said thing, she was studying in one of these academic fields and had an interest in what the animation was showing and how we were harvesting the data.
She was quite attractive.
There are always photographs at these things.
Later she was talking with a then colleague of mine who had studied in a similar field.
The photographer approached her to join a photo, which involved the display, our director, a hand full of stakeholders and an attractive lady who had basically no affiliation with anything relevant to the launch..
But you have to have a dolly-bird in the press release, don’t you?
Good to see that old fashioned nepotism is alive and well in the Irish media. Noticed it recently in the Irish times too.
What nepotism is this exactly?
He meant nippletism
I presume Roisin is related to Declan or Damian Kiberd. It’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know.
“In Ireland, the line between sexy and silly is thin.” – LOL I thought tit fair comment.
I’m not sure that isn’t true everywhere, too.
“amazonian” not sure she knows what that means.
Also, by Sunday papers she means the sindo.
More seriously, a lot of what she bemoans is pretty much ubiquitous in UK and US media too. While a lot of it is good points a similar amount of it is culture cringe.
Enlightened paddy denigrating her culture to impress her English friends. Vice, eh?
Nailed it.
Although, she’s far from ‘enlightened’ in fairness, more like she’s just woken up a bit to the world and industry she makes a living from.
You’re missing the point of using the word “Enlightened” in that sentence.
Ooops :)
+2
I’m not sure why people keep rolling out the notion that stuff goes on in other countries too as if it’s a killer point, for this or for anything else. In and of itself, it doesn’t really invalidate anything, though I suppose if you feel a broader context on the subject would be useful, it’d be a fair point. There’s often a ‘who the hell do you think you are to be criticising us’ which is pure defensiveness.
Because a large part of her article suggests that this is an Irish phenomenon and linked to our catholic history?
I can’t imagine why linking misogyny to a long history of Catholcism would be a problem.
Maybe you should ask the Italians with their tits out tv game shows. Just a thought :)
She hasn’t a clue what “amazonian” means, I laughed heartily when I read that :)
Ireland does have a misogyny problem, but Vice magazine seems to me s strange platform to complain about misogyny on, it being very misogynistic itself. I think that kind of dilutes the message a bit.
How Do You Promote An App That Helps You Lose Weight?
https://www.broadsheet.ie/2010/08/20/how-do-you-promote-an-app-that-helps-you-lose-weight/
Always Stephen’s Green…
Oh, I know…. with images of the people you are targeting, the people who will most likely use the product? Like the two models and the woman left of centre.
But not by sticking an overweight man in a suit in the image as it is a product he will likely not buy or ever use. Totally inappropriate to have him in that shot.
Good spot!
You think an overweight man wouldn’t use an app to help him lose weight? Riiiight. Or that an overweight man wouldn’t dream of losing weight? Riiiight.
“Likely” is a small word with big implications :) Note the use of “targeting” in the first part also.
My point is basically that in this situation the models are appropriately used for selling such a product as women in their age group are the ones who will have the most interest in such a product which has been proven time and time again by the fact that they are the people who buy such products.
Happy now? :)
That whole women buy from women thing assumes that women won’t buy from men. Which is rubbish.
And women buying from women is a whole other point from women buying from half-naked women, which is sort of the point of the article.
Ecstatic darling :) Now excuse me why I pull on my LBD to go for a run.
There must be a more imaginative, less sexist, way to market products. I’m not referring to this app specifically. At least he doesn’t have them in bikinis.
“That whole women buy from women thing assumes that women won’t buy from men. Which is rubbish.”
No it doesn’t Pidgeon.
It assumes nothing but it understands that women DO buy more from ads where women are speaking to them rather than some man, who is more often perceived to be talking at women, rather than to. Advertising is not a black and white or empirical science but it has understanding of what will work better than another approach.
“And women buying from women is a whole other point from women buying from half-naked women, which is sort of the point of the article.”
There are no half naked women in the photoshoot example presented by Buzz which is what I was commenting on as being a bad example of lazy PR shoots.
It’s not a bad example at all. It’s still sexist BS.
No wonder people dont buy things if they are being talked down to! Not sure if that has anything to do with the person’s gender though.
Irish people have a particularly strange attitude to sex.
When I first moved to Ireland, a friend of mind who works as a psychologist in California gave me a copy of a book “Saints, Scholars and Schizoprhenics”. It’s about the amount of mental illness in Ireland and how it’s tied in to the ‘Irish bachelor’ phenomenon which in turn is tied into our general sexual weirdness. The Irish bachelor may no longer exist but the general weirdness remains.
Seriously, what other country could come up with the sunday independent. The creepist thing about is is those ‘lovely girl’ photos on the front page. Where do they get them from?
What other country? The Daily Telegraph does exactly the same.
Sunday Times too.
Whataboutery.
Yes, front page photos of pretty girls who are famous. The Sindo likes to feature random unknown pretty girls AND tell you where to find them if you’re a stalker.
We are just some backwater town, Helen. Indo uses its own female journalists as sexual pawns , so hardly going to respect some little wan in a bikini desperate to make a few quid .
The problem with the irish media is not misogyny it is mediocrity and laziness.When the likes of Georgia salpa, jedward,garth brooks,fat freddie thompson etc,etc,etc,etc,etc. get elevated to any kind of height that could be classed as ”CELEBRITY” it is obvious that you are dealing with a lowest common denominator brainless crew.
Indo appeals to the lowest common denominator and yet remains Ireland’s biggest selling newspaper. What does it say about us?
But is it really Ireland’s biggest selling newspaper? I’d say they’re not above massaging the figures. Go into any hotel in any provincial town and you’ll see a stack of them available at reception for free.
It says that we are exactly as one would expect.
You do know what lowest common denominator means, don’t you?
Indo and tabloid readers?
No.
Enlighten me please, wise one?
The Indo is a tabloid and the soon people realise and this the better.
On a lighter note, here’s a Facebook album I made of lots of scantly clad cailíni advertising Argos and Taytos and stuff… Enjoy.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.522489844517359.1073741831.100002690446285&type=1&l=b7b9a12300
Does nobody see the irony of using that picture of Georgia Salpa in the rebuttal? Seriously, that’s what I thought we were supposed to be laughing at and people are arguing about whether the Brits do it more?
Should we not be setting our own standards?
Don’t read vice.