How Justin Timberlake deals with infidelity....

I know I'm super unhip in terms of pop music, mainly because I think most of it is bad. Today while watching music videos while waiting for Colombo to start (that should be an indication of how trendy I am), I came across the video for Justin Timberlake's What Goes Around Comes Around, which features the acting talents of Scarlett Johanssen. I didn't really listen to the song, mainly because I couldn't decipher the words, I was more intrigued by the plot of the video: boy meets girl, girl is really hot and all the guy's friends drool over her, girl ends up getting off with another guy behind first guys back, he finds out and car chase ensues, girl ends up crashing car and dying. Guy feels kind of bad....

Seriously?

I don't have the effort at the moment to deconstruct this video but suffice to say Justin Timberlake isn't doing much to combat the stereotypical perspective that some people have about violence against women, which is basically that sometimes women deserve it. Maybe living without a television for the past two months has made me forget that sexism and violence against women is cool.

Sexual Threats in the Blogosphere

There was a sad article in the Washington Post on Monday about sexual threats towards women bloggers. Some of you probably have heard by now about the Kathy Sierra threats, among other things. I think this is one of those issues where if you're not a blogger or an avid blog reader, it doesn't really mean anything to you. Oh no, a bunch of women who are dumb enough to put themselves out there on the internet are now complaining because some weirdos are making lame comments, with sexually threatening undertones. Well, actually it's much more than that and it should matter to people who aren't involved in the blogosphere. It's huge and it shouldn't be ignored.

Read the article to find out the stats.

This issue is important on two levels:

1) It's an shining example of how women are never free from sexual violence or the threat of sexual violence. No matter what. Whether you are outside, walking around, or sitting in your apartment, with the door locked, wearing your bathrobe and drinking coffee. The threat of sexual violence will creep in to your computer and smack you in the face, just to remind you that as a woman you are a breathing target for sexual abuse. JUST in case you forgot.

2) The use of language in sexual violence is incredibly important and it's not recognized enough as a key element to how we learn and understand sexual violence and women's bodies. Being able to verbalize a sexual threat is not so easy unless you are used to and comfortable with talking about women's bodies in a derogatory nature. The use of sexual threats on women's blogs also demonstrates clearly how verbal aggression of women tends to focus on their sexuality, rather than any other aspect of their identities.