On the breastfeeding icons brouhaha
Jun. 1st, 2006 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperWatching a great deal of drama flying across LJ as well as off-LJ blogs about the whole breastfeeding in default icons controversy. What I have to say on the matter is this: if you disagree with LJ/Six Apart's policy, it doesn't seem very effective to just delete your journal for a day, especially if you're a paid user. I get the idea that the point is to try to make enough of a dent in LJ's clickthrough revenue to make the Six Apart powers that be take notice, but the problem is, do y'all really think that's going to make much of a difference? Show of hands--how many of you have set your journals to allow ads on them? How many of you actually click through on ads on other people's journals? I have yet to see a single ad on LJ, since I am a paid user. Were I to delete my journal for the blackout day, LJ would lose nothing because I wouldn't be clicking through on any ads anyway.
Instead, I would recommend that you announce your intention to them to let your paid account status lapse (or if you are a free or ad-level user, your intention to not give them any revenue by upgrading to a paid account), archive your journal via the method of your choice, and then permanently delete it. And start up a new journal elsewhere or learn how to host your own. Six Apart will not care if you just delete your journal for a day as a token gesture. They will probably not even notice, given that LJ has over ten million users and communities, and given that a huge chunk of the user journals are free accounts anyway. A reasoned, well-written letter of complaint, followed up by taking your business elsewhere, will get a lot more done.
As for what I think about the actual issue, to be honest, I think it's really silly to raise such a stink about "LJ's Attack On Women And Mothers" when there are a lot bigger battles to fight on behalf of women in the U.S. as well as the rest of the world. Don't get me wrong. As far as I'm concerned breastfeeding is a perfectly spiffy biological function. If![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
solarbird and I are ever able to have a child, I'll very likely be doing it.
But when I think about things like oh, say, the case of Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi, who has been sentenced to death in Iran for killing a man who ambushed and tried to rape her... or the whole notion of the federal guidelines advising medical providers to treat all women as 'pre-pregnant', on which I have already posted... or the ongoing idiotic contradiction in this country that a woman should never ever ever have an abortion, oh God no that's bad, and yet once the baby pops out she's on her own figuring out how to take care of it, and God help her if she's a single mother not blessed with the obligatory husband--or even worse, *gasp*, a lesbian. Don't have medical insurance, and your baby is ill? Too bad, so sad, sucks to be you...
When I think about these things, LJ asking people to keep breasts (with or without babies) out of default icons (and just the default ones, mind you, not even all icons)... I honestly can't begin to compare them.
If you happen to feel differently, more power to you. Go fight the good fight. But like I said--if you really want to make Six Apart notice your disagreement, I don't think deleting your journal for a day is going to do it.
Instead, I would recommend that you announce your intention to them to let your paid account status lapse (or if you are a free or ad-level user, your intention to not give them any revenue by upgrading to a paid account), archive your journal via the method of your choice, and then permanently delete it. And start up a new journal elsewhere or learn how to host your own. Six Apart will not care if you just delete your journal for a day as a token gesture. They will probably not even notice, given that LJ has over ten million users and communities, and given that a huge chunk of the user journals are free accounts anyway. A reasoned, well-written letter of complaint, followed up by taking your business elsewhere, will get a lot more done.
As for what I think about the actual issue, to be honest, I think it's really silly to raise such a stink about "LJ's Attack On Women And Mothers" when there are a lot bigger battles to fight on behalf of women in the U.S. as well as the rest of the world. Don't get me wrong. As far as I'm concerned breastfeeding is a perfectly spiffy biological function. If
solarbird and I are ever able to have a child, I'll very likely be doing it. But when I think about things like oh, say, the case of Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi, who has been sentenced to death in Iran for killing a man who ambushed and tried to rape her... or the whole notion of the federal guidelines advising medical providers to treat all women as 'pre-pregnant', on which I have already posted... or the ongoing idiotic contradiction in this country that a woman should never ever ever have an abortion, oh God no that's bad, and yet once the baby pops out she's on her own figuring out how to take care of it, and God help her if she's a single mother not blessed with the obligatory husband--or even worse, *gasp*, a lesbian. Don't have medical insurance, and your baby is ill? Too bad, so sad, sucks to be you...
When I think about these things, LJ asking people to keep breasts (with or without babies) out of default icons (and just the default ones, mind you, not even all icons)... I honestly can't begin to compare them.
If you happen to feel differently, more power to you. Go fight the good fight. But like I said--if you really want to make Six Apart notice your disagreement, I don't think deleting your journal for a day is going to do it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 10:33 pm (UTC)will now shut up until the outburst urge has ceased a bit. ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 10:13 pm (UTC)I made a similar suggestion in one of the journals suggesting the blackout.
These 24-hour 'boycotts' kind of annoy me. They're very popular, I guess because we all learned when we were young what boycotts did for civil rights.
Except the Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 384 days, and the protesters sacrificed a lot more than the ability to sign their comments for a day. Or drink their favorite soda for a day or whatever.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 10:23 pm (UTC)And yeah, I was thinking of how I've seen chain letters go around the Internet repeatedly trying to get people to urge Congress to do something about gas prices by boycotting driving for a day. It's the same thing, really. Doing it for a day is an inconvenience. Doing it for longer and letting it actually impact your life in some way, that's making a much, much stronger and more sincere statement.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:47 am (UTC)I don't even know what your whole post is about anyway though, hahaa. What are people protesting?
Thanks for bringing up Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi. I was going to post on her last week when I got home from work, but then it totally slipped my mind. It's outragous.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 06:10 pm (UTC)So now the protest (which is tomorrow, I believe) is supposed to be that if you are against Six Apart and LJ's policy on the matter, you should delete your journal for a day.
And re: Nazanin, you're welcome. Last I checked the site, it seems she's still got a fighting chance, so there's some cause for hope there.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 10:34 pm (UTC)Why they're singling out breastfeeding icons when there are so many other things that could be a lot more offensive, I don't know.
In the end, I guess it doesn't really matter to me. It's their service, their rules. People are free to use it or go elsewhere. Many, many people have whined and complained about this and that on LiveJournal, many of them have threatened to leave...yet here they remain.
I hadn't heard of this blackout idea, but it strikes me as something that would be about as effective and useful as the gas boycott chain letter that occasionally goes around.
To me, it's just another example of the internet being the internet.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:27 am (UTC)They're not "singling out" breastfeeding icons. In order to retain their common carrier status, LJ Abuse cannot (and does not) seek out violations. They can only act upon things that are reported to them. This whole ridiculous debacle was started by some jerkoff with an axe to grind against the
Sorry. Worked for and with LJAT for 2+ years. I get sick of seeing them misrepresented.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:33 am (UTC)I'm actually probably one of the people who gives them, in general, more of a benefit of the doubt than most. But, as a volunteer group, they can be very prone to making mistakes at times.
That said, I think most of the whining comes from people who just crave attention.
I don't see what the big deal is about people switching to a different default userpic. There are a lot more important things for those people to worry about than fighting for some "right" to keep it as their default pic, and they're totally misrepresenting the situation if they think LJ/SA is on some sort of crusade to rid the site of breastisists.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:59 am (UTC)Hear hear. And thank you. =) Didn't mean to snap earlier; it's been a long week.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:28 am (UTC)So yeah, it's all about the drama.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:27 am (UTC)How'd you wind up meeting
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:30 am (UTC)Yeah, yeah - had to get a picture (http://pics.livejournal.com/pjammer/pic/00029d4q/g15) too.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 04:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 11:42 pm (UTC)Really, I think the ones who are throwing the biggest fuss haven't fully read the ban. No where does it say you can't have those icons. They just can't have them as default. That is my opinion.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:24 am (UTC)Bah.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:35 am (UTC)Sheesh, some people.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 12:00 am (UTC)And that is why I do not win at Snark. ;)
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Date: 2006-06-02 01:02 am (UTC)Which they didn’t actually do. The CDC guidelines in question (I read the originals, because I no longer trust the news media to report anything accurately) use “prepregnant” to refer to women who are planning to become pregnant in the next few months.
Also, check out the CDC’s Preconception Care FAQ. Item #6 explicitly suggests, as a way of avoiding pregnancy: “Either I won’t have heterosexual sex, or I’ll correctly use effective contraception.” And item #7 talks about what men can do.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 04:10 am (UTC)Nevertheless... they are here to feed babies. And if there's anything more important than feeding and nurturing babies, nobody's pointed it out to me yet.
When my son was just a baby (he's 16 now) my ex was at the Pike Place Market. She was against the fence above Post Alley (right near Rachel, the bronze pig) and was feeding him. Two cops (one older, one younger) meandered by and the younger one went off because she had her teat out. Mind you, it was not in plain view -- and, ex or not, it's a (er... they are...) very pretty tittie(s) so who cares if it was in plain view -- but he went off anyway.
She waited calmly for him to chill out (or at least run out of breath) and then said, "You must have been bottle fed."
He started to sputter and the older cop basically grabbed him by the elbow and dragged his ass away for "a little talk."
What bothers me most about this (even though I hadn't heard about it until this post) is that, once again, a breast or two is being considered as "dirty".
This. Is. Wrong.
Ok. I'll get down off of my soapbox now (I was getting a nosebleed anyway).
Another great post, Anna.
ciao for now...
HH
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 07:41 pm (UTC)I'm just sayin', if folks really want to persuade Six Apart and Livejournal to alter their stance on the matter, a one-day token boycott isn't likely to accomplish much. Depriving them of significant revenue, on the other hand, sounds way more effective to me.
And I really like the suggestion one person made on
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 07:43 pm (UTC)Another great post, Anna.
Thank you. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 06:19 am (UTC)What gets me is that it's OK to show male nipple. Because male breasts/nipples "aren't sexually titillating." To which I say "The HELL you say--I find men's breasts very sexually arousing."
STOOPID boycott, too.
(Wonder what they'd do over a text icon that said "this is a picture of a naked female breast"? :)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 07:38 pm (UTC)I really liked the suggestion one poster made over on
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 07:36 am (UTC)So, debating breastfeeding icons on LJ is a very tiny and insignificant thing compared to war and hunger and all of that, but, y'know, I don't think putting a small effort towards making breastfeeding more accepted does in any way prevent people from caring about or working against war and hunger and so on and so forth. It is entirely possible to hold opinions on more than one thing at a time.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 02:53 pm (UTC)Sure. I'm just explaining my own take on the matter, and like I said, if others feel differently, more power to 'em.
But this is specifically why I think that if you really want to send a message to Livejournal about this, just deleting your journal for a day isn't enough. Especially if you're a paid user. It'll send a much stronger and more sincere statement if you take your journal off LJ entirely, and deprive Six Apart of any future revenue at all.
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Date: 2006-06-02 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-03 05:30 am (UTC)