Pro-Choice Female Sportswriter Rips NOW
The Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins destroys the National Organization of Women for their opposition to Tim Tebow’s ad. For those who don’t follow Jenkins, she is both a staunch feminist and pro-choice. The whole column is a must-read. Here is the red-meat section:
I’m pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I’ve heard in the past week, I’ll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the “National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time.” For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.
Tebow’s 30-second ad hasn’t even run yet, but it already has provoked “The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us” to reveal something important about themselves: They aren’t actually “pro-choice” so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.
Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn’t be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikini selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn’t.
There’s enough strawmen in that oped for a corn field.
(1) “Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one.”
When has NOW *ever* advocated for advertisements of women in bikinis selling beer? The old rap on NOW is that they were advocating a humorless, sexless society in which women couldn’t use their looks, only their brains. It’s part of that whole gap between the “second wave” NOW types who are suspicious of women’s using their sexuality, and the more “if I like it, it isn’t exploitative” third-wave younger generation that has gone away from NOW. Jenkins should lose her feminist credentials for her total ignorance about feminism.
(2) NOW has in no way criticized Tebow for his virginity. Again, when did NOW become advocates for men having sex, particularly outside marriage?
(3) The AP article Jenkins quotes actually states: “Terry O’Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women, said she had respect for the private choices made by women such as Pam Tebow.”
(4) I’m not sure how Mrs. Tebow could have really had a choice about whether to have an abortion. While she says her physicians recommended that she have an abortion, abortion is illegal in the Philippines. Some say that she easily could have come to the U.S. for an abortion, but that’s at odds with the fact that she stayed in the Philippines for her pregnancy and to give birth to Tim, despite the fact that she had a high-risk pregnancy, was on bed rest for two months and had already been severely ill due to the sanitary conditions in the Philippines.
Indeed, one way in which the ad is not telling the whole story is that it doesn’t mention that safe, legal abortion isn’t an option for women in the Philippines, and hundreds die every year from self-induced and “folk medicine” remedies to terminate their pregnancies.
Great column — honesty and common sense are powerful.
For a worthwhile, serious critique of NOW’s position, check out Sunday’s NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/opinion/31sun4.html
@ PG: How did Pat Tebow get over from the Philippines to the US? On a canoe? I’m sure if her life were at risk and she thought the abortion necessary and within her range of choice she could have high-tailed it back to the US.
Also, I reread the Jenkins’ piece and her missive on Tebow’s virginity was directed at the skeptical public in general, not NOW.
Why isn’t her point about “the dog who doesn’t bit” in terms of beer and go-daddy commercials valid? Isn’t this something a lot of people have been saying for years in terms of “true feminism”? Jenkins point is merely that NOW’s reaction her shows they are more pro-abortion than they are pro-choice and pro-woman. Even the NY Times article you cite makes the same underlying point.
PG has been listening to Gloria “where’s the camera” Allreds talking points…
why does an ad have to “tell the whole story”..if you don’t like it buy your own ad…..
Without having seen the ad, it’s really hard to comment on it’s comments. Has the ad been made public? Has NOW even seen it?
I’ll agree with PG that the article is a bit sloppily written. Then again, it’s an opinion piece and not a news article. There is obviously some strawman-arguments, grandstanding, and general pomp to the article, but that is par for the course now. The underlying point is legitimate, assuming the ad is as characterized by the writer (which I have no reason to believe it’s not).
A far better piece by a sportswriter: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?page=hill/100202
There is less focus on NOW, but a better perspective on Tebow and the context of the situation.
Decent op-ed piece. NOW has always been a bastion of radical abortion oriented feminists, who despise choice as illustrated by their actions. It’s a relief that their ridiculously dishonest posturing and slavish devotion to hard left politics is finally biting them in the ass.
Alberto,
“I’m sure if her life were at risk and she thought the abortion necessary and within her range of choice she could have high-tailed it back to the US.”
So if her life were at risk, why not high-tail it back to the U.S. to get the best medical care possible once she decided to complete the pregnancy? Again, she was having a high-risk pregnancy in the first place due to the lower standards of sanitation and medicine in the Philippines. Being pro-life presumably entails willingness to take positive action to preserve life, not only refusal to destroy it.
“Why isn’t her point about ‘the dog who doesn’t bit’ in terms of beer and go-daddy commercials valid?”
It’s invalid because the dog DOES bite, frequently. You clearly don’t pay any attention to NOW if you think they do not protest the sexual objectification of women by advertisers. E.g. http://loveyourbody.nowfoundation.org/offensiveads.html.
Claiming that NOW doesn’t object to beer ads of women in bikinis is a lie. It may be a lie born of ignorance, but Jenkins’s credentials as a feminist are nonexistant if she’s ignorant of what NOW has been doing to protest offensive depictions of women.
The NYT editorial does not claim that NOW is actually pro-abortion. It says, “Instead of trying to silence an opponent, advocates for allowing women to make their own decisions about whether to have a child should be using the Super Bowl spotlight to convey what their movement is all about: protecting the right of women like Pam Tebow to make their private reproductive choices.”
KC,
If I don’t like an ad, the only possible response is to have the millions of dollars to run my own? I can’t, for example, criticize the ad for its failures of full disclosure in the comments to a blog? I see why y’all are happy with the decision in Citizens United: let only he with the most money be allowed to speak.
If you’re under the false impression that I agree with NOW on whether the ad should be run, you evidently didn’t notice my followup comment where I recommend the NYT editorial that criticizes NOW, but does so with solid logic instead of strawmen.
As for “talking points,” I see that the falsehood of NOW’s not objecting to bikini beer ads is widespread. Surely both Jenkins and McCain are old enough to remember the 1991 incident over the Old Milwaukee ads. Or NOW’s 2003 Super Bowl ad watch. Oh, wait, that would require them to do even as much research as a Google search (national organization women advertisements beer) before spouting off about NOW’s stance on sexual objectification of women in the media.
OK, *seven years ago* they reviewed the ads for sexual objectification. Color me underwhelmed, especially after being bombarded by the jiggling idiocy of “Go Daddy” SB ads over the past few years.
Even looking at the 2003 piece, it lacks the same vein-popping heat being directed toward the Tebow ad. Which is itself objective: Sexual degradation of women is bad and all, but oblique criticism of abortion is a declaration of war.
Actually, the “buy your own ad” rejoinder is quite well aimed at NOW.
“suggestive,” not “objective.”
Didn’t get enough java this morning.
DP-
The prevalence of ads like “Go Daddy”’s don’t mean NOW isn’t still protesting, only that they haven’t been successful in accomplishing their goals. Or, maybe they have, since their goals seem largely to be protesting, making noise, and getting themselves on TV. But, IF the goal was to get those ads off the air, they have failed. NOW is a very flawed organization that more often than not undermines true efforts for gender equity. They deserve much criticism, but as PG has pointed out, when that criticism is more style than substance, it weakens the counterargument.
Dale, NOW does the Super Bowl ad watch almost every year. I linked to the 2003 ad watch because it comes up on the first several Google hits for the search I suggested in parentheses. I was trying to emphasize how incredibly easy it would have been to fact-check the claim that NOW doesn’t care about the sexualization of women in advertising, particularly in beer ads, particularly during the Super Bowl.
If you think NOW isn’t displaying concern about sexualization of women in advertising unless they specifically criticize the Go Daddy commercials, you’re not making a serious argument. Particularly since what I was rebutting was Jenkins and McCain’s claims that NOW doesn’t care about the bikinis in beer ads — when I could point to several examples that NOW has protested precisely that. Such claims are easily falsifiable with a single Google search, but you don’t seem to want to acknowledge that.
As for the level of heat displayed, NOW has been arguing against commercials that sexualize women for literally decades now. As BSK notes, their efforts have not been successful in changing advertising; if anything, things have gotten worse instead of better.
But NOW recognizes that an attractive woman who gets paid to wear a bikini and dance around some dudes drinking Budweiser is not having her life put at risk or her ability to make choices taken away. (Indeed, to the extent that Budweiser has made Jiggle Queen a job option for a few years in a woman’s late teens and early twenties, some would argue that women have an option they otherwise wouldn’t.)
The difference in the level of “heat” in reaction to ads is due to the difference in what’s at stake. As William Saletan pointed out, women die from severe placental abruption, particularly when they are in developing countries. Please pardon NOW for being more concerned about whether women have access to medical care that will save their lives, than about the 101 ways Danica Patrick chooses to exploit her sex appeal.
BSK:
My argument wasn’t directed toward whether NOW had achieved any successes with respect to commercials which degrade women. That’s probably too much to ask in the current environment, even if NOW focused all of its energies on the task.
Rather, the argument is that, between fighting the commercial sexual exploitation of women and defending abortion, the latter is NOW’s lodestar, now and forever.
A quick look at NOW’s website for today is ample proof:
http://www.now.org/index.html
“Hot topic” #1: The Tebow ad.
Hot topic #2: The Roeder conviction. Hot Topic #5: Celebrating 37 Years of Roe v. Wade.”
“Issue” No. 1: “Abortion and Reproductive Rights.”
“Campaigns and Events” #4: “STOP STUPAK!”
“Take Action!” #2: “Health Care Bill Must Drop Abortion Language…”
“Take Action!” #4: “Abstinence-Only Education Shouldn’t Make the Cut”
Number of action/campaign/topic items addressing the sexual exploitation of women: Zero.
OK, well, if you click “Media Hall of Shame,” right after the aneurysm about Tebow, there is one protest of an exploitative Burger King ad.
So, yeah, one initiative seven years ago from the NOW Foundation (related to, but not NOW proper), and a below the fold second pager about a bikini ad weighed against the multiple die-in-the-trenches for abortion trumpet blasts speak quite eloquently about NOW’s priorities. Not to mention pretty much exonerating Jenkins and Stacy McCain of even mild exaggeration.
“The difference in the level of “heat” in reaction to ads is due to the difference in what’s at stake. As William Saletan pointed out, women die from severe placental abruption, particularly when they are in developing countries.”
An interesting argument, as Saletan usually manages to raise. But that’s not NOW’s argument, and you know it.
“NOW President Terry O’Neil told the Associated Press that the planned ad is ‘extraordinarily offensive and demeaning.’
‘That’s not being respectful of other people’s lives,” O’Neill said. “It is offensive to hold one way out as being a superior way over everybody else’s.’”
http://www.now.org/issues/media/hall-of-shame/index.php/reproductive/cbs-to-air-anti-abortion-ad-during-super-bowl-1
And a scan of the index page shows the same lack of concern for Saletan’s issue (or even related issues).
In fact, they appear to be just as quiet about severe placental abruption in developing countries as they are about sex-selection abortions.
What NOW is screaming about is anything that might make someone think poorly of abortion. Period.
P.S.–OK, good–the critique of ads has been somewhat sustained. Now (no pun intended) they can take advantage of the spotlight to draw attention to that, too.
“Not to mention pretty much exonerating Jenkins and Stacy McCain of even mild exaggeration.”
Whaaa?!
I demonstrate how easy it would have been to just do a Google search that shows NOW has critiqued the specific thing that Jenkins and McCain mention (bikinis in beer ads) multiple times over many years. Click around a little further, and you’ll find several other critiques NOW has made of various ads, including the Burger King one you mention.
How does this exonerate Jenkins and McCain “of even mild exaggeration”? It shows they’re either too lazy to run a Google search, too dishonest to disclose what they found, or too careless in their writing to specify, “NOW has protested sexualized images of women, but given that issue far, far less attention than abortion rights.”
Jenkins and McCain speak in absolutes, not in priorities. They declare that in NOW’s eyes, “women in bikinis selling beer is the right … message for America to see for 30 seconds” and “Feminists OK With Women in Panties Selling Beer.” If NOW actually believes what these two claim, NOW has a funny way of showing it, what with their repeated protests against bikinis/ panties in beer ads.
NOW would not disagree at all if you said that they prioritize reproductive rights over images of women in the media. Madison Avenue’s depiction of women is part of free speech; so long as (male) advertising executives believe that men will buy stuff based on hot chicks writhing around the product, only the most egregious ads (especially those that are violent and not just sexual) will get pulled. It’s the Almighty Dollar. In contrast, Focus on the Family is trying to legally prohibit abortion.
I realize folks commenting here generally agree with FOF and disagree with NOW on abortion, but I’m astounded that you believe NOW should make it a lesser priority than bikinis in beer ads. You don’t expect that of FoF (which is concerned about sexualization of the culture generally, not particularly about exploitation of women) — why would you expect it of NOW?
The NOW page Dale links does in fact refer to FOF’s wanting to make abortion illegal in the U.S., which would put women here in the same situation as many face overseas when they have a severe placental abruption: risk life and health by completing the pregnancy, or risk life and health by having an unsafe, illegal abortion. So how is that a “lack of concern for Saletan’s issue,” which iswomen’s reproductive health?
Having now seen the commercial, I think it’s painfully obvious that NOW’s stance was ridiculous and entirely knee-jerk. Friends I was with didn’t even know what the ad was for and only after I said something (because of what I read here), did we get it. And no one was the least bit bothered. The ad was ambiguous in terms of what it said about abortion and was really not about abortion at all. Shame on NOW.
I’m astounded that you believe NOW should make it a lesser priority than bikinis in beer ads.
Other than the fact it should be a lesser priority for anyone, b/c abortion is evil and no one should defend it, I don’t think anyone was arguing that. The point is that NOW does make it their No. 1 priority, and for that, they are evil.