Where Misogyny Meets CONSEQUENCES

from Art Department Weekly | Issue 106 Vol. 13

Representation Matters

Cancel culture shows up in my social media when it’s about a mom with an OnlyFans account reacting to her children being expelled from a Catholic school. The way I see it, the phrase cancel culture only took off after white men were punished for their misdeeds. The same society that wants to demonize cancel culture is happy to keep on attacking women.

**Kelleth Cuthbert standee at Walmart**
Madeline Vega

Kelleth Cuthbert’s appearance on the 2019 Golden Globes red carpet was so viral Fiji Water used her likeness for standees. Cuthbert sued, claiming she did not sign away her rights to ‘Fiji Water Girl.’ The bottled-water company filed a countersuit, alleging Cuthbert not only reneged on their agreement, but had “attempted to extort” Fiji, characterizing Cuthbert’s lawsuit as a move to “bite the hand that feeds her.”

When Ted Yoho accosted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and called her names in front of reporters, the story became that AOC was using this as a platform to spring an expansion of her brand. AOC making a speech to say Yoho’s apology was unacceptable was somehow norm shattering. She is disruptive and viral. Commenters showed up to say she can’t complain. That’s how men treat each other. This is equal treatment for women. To which one wonders if men should treat each other better.

BOOBS But Not Like That

Rape culture is the system that prioritizes a woman’s purity and also allows for a man’s promiscuity, like a girl being sent home from school for violating a dress code (and interrupting her education) rather than teaching boys to focus on education. A whole industry keeps it going with pendants women can press to send a distress signal, nail polish to test if their drinks have been drugged, and so on. This creates a problem when there are nipples out there on Instagram from breastfeeding pictures. Is it sexy? Is she slutty? The same culture that once demanded women’s swimwear include high collars cannot resolve whipping out a tit for the purpose of nourishing a screaming infant. Hence, the comments on the photo below are about how horrified a mom is her daughter witnessed a stranger breastfeeding as though the daughter should not know this. —MV

**Two moms who received two different reactions**

KAREN ALWAYS WINS

Whiteness always saves the day. When a Black couple stole baby formula, the press used their mugshots. When a white man murdered his daughters to punish his wife, the press used a happy family photo. So it’s not surprising that two different women breastfeeding in their graduation caps and gowns would receive different reactions publicly.

Karlesha Thurman, a Black mother in California, ended up deleting the photo of herself to quell the blacklash. Four months later, Caucasian Australian woman Jacci Sharkey’s photo received overwhelmingly positive comments. Ruby Hamad has an amazing explanation on DailyLife.com.au. Lest we forget Meghan Markle’s claims about British royalty, “Colonial Australia was no better” than America: Non-white women were fair game for white men. So we end up with a culture where the hooker with a heart of gold is always white. “Even at her most licentious, she is made to appear innocent, wholesome and strangely virginal,” says Professor Edward Rhymes. So Sharkey is “adorable” and portrayed with girlish innocence while Thurman is vilified. And it’s not about where she was sitting. —MV