Let's look at an ad's intended message.
Let's also look at its unacknowledged message.
The ad is in opposition to the Jackson County charter change initiatives about whichI have written several times. I favor the initiatives.
Here's how the emailed ad starts:
The denoted burden of the ad is that the three measures to update the county charter are a deceptive ruse, fooling people into supporting something dangerous. It leads with this vivid image, easily understood -- a perplexed young woman.
The ad argues that making the commissioners nonpartisan, increasing their number from three to five, and reducing their pay is somehow a progressive "mind virus" woke Democratic plot to make Jackson County more like Portland. I disagree, but that is not the point of today's blog post. My point is the choice of image, and the signal that it sends to women, particularly young women.
The intention of the ad is not an argument that young, attractive women are too dim-witted to understand complicated things. The ad author probably wanted some eye-catching image to show a baffled person. The image serves that purpose, with fingers to temple, mouth askew, and furrowed brow.
Very possibly this ad offends no one who saw it in its original circulation. I suspect the ad was sent mostly to people in middle age and older, and mostly to Republicans. They may not give the image a second thought.
But a person with daughters or nieces might see an unsaid message to be absorbed by young women: "Oooh. This is too complicated for me. Silly, dumb me." That message is not the text of the ad. It is the subtext. It is part of the slow accumulation of messages that young women get as they absorb our culture. They get "silly me" messages in images like this that steer them away from STEM classes and discourage ambition and achievement. It is teaching them the unspoken estimations of their capabilities.
The "silly me" message is cultural background noise. Here is a thought experiment that brings the background noise into consciousness. Imagine the person depicted in the ad was someone identifiable as Native American, Jewish, Black, or elderly. Then we would instantly notice the secondary message, that ballot initiatives are too complicated for Native Americans, Jews, Blacks, or seniors to comprehend, because, after all, they are likely dim-witted. But put a young woman there, and who notices any message?
Young women notice, even if they don't realize they notice.
I want to be cautious here. I think the concern about micro-aggressions has gone overboard and is backfiring politically. I think some people are too quick to find offense. I think all of us are better off if we have some resilience and thicker skins. Cultural change is slow, and some people bring up the rear. Smokers used to think they could smoke anywhere, and now they don't. Most people now pick up dog litter on sidewalks. Progress happens. But if everyone walks on eggshells, we have political backlash, which we are experiencing now in the "war on woke."
But I bring up the depiction of this young woman to raise the consciousness of people who wonder where all that sensitivity to "systemic" prejudice and implicit bias comes from. People who see petty insults in hidden places aren't wrong.
Ideally, people will be more respectful, and ideally people will cut some slack to people who aren't. We are all feeling our way here.
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Note: The ad was sent to me as an email, and it is too long to send the whole ad. It mostly attacks the presumed motives and mindset of the initiative volunteers, not the initiatives themselves. Example:
“Ruse to gain power”. They recognize that they have all the power with just three seats and two seats being a decision-making quorum. And you are correct. It isn’t that they can disagree with the purpose of the restructuring. Thank you for spotting the use of the baffled young woman. I would expect a baffled-looking older couple. You are a gem.
Republican conservatives lost any claim to fiscal responsibility, honesty or ethics the minute they nominated and continued to support one of the least conservative autocrat/would be dictators in our nation's history.