On Halloween, about 2000 people received an email from the Highfields Center for Composting offering “New Rewards for Highfields’ Heat Recovery Kickstarter Project!” The Hardwick nonprofit has been researching ways to better capture the heat generated by decomposing food scraps, and is in the midst of a $40,000 Kickstarter campaign to help fund a research center.
The two images that accompanied the email, though, were startling for some. In one, a smiling woman held up squash to obscure her naked breasts, while straddling a green placard with the word ‘Compost’ written across it. Another woman lay topless in a pile of dark humus, flinging some up with her left foot. Both models were volunteers for a 2013 ‘Hot Compost’ calendar that Highfields’ planned to offer as a reward in its campaign.
But the cheeky photos sparked a small but vocal backlash from customers and others who found the concept offensive and demeaning to women. Under pressure, Highfields scrapped plans for the calendar and offered an apology on its website and Facebook page, in which it called the concept a “mistake” and said it did not reflect Highfields as an organization.
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Let’s be clear, neither these images nor this language exists within a vacuum. Our culture constantly and insidiously sexualizes and objectifies girls and women at every turn. Adding to the body of work initiated by the first “Killing Us Softly”, here’s a recent report by the APA (American Psychological Association) that examines the profound effects this sexualization is having on girls and, by extension, women, in our society:
http://www.apa.org/pi/women/pr…
There’s no debate about this. The calendar’s images and language might as well have been copied right out of a textbook on the subject.
For Highfields (and Seven Days for that matter) to refuse to speak out about this epidemic (neither is willing to offer up or stand behind any proven research – we commenters are having to do it all) shows how there’s no realization by either party that there’s anything wrong with images and content like this. Even worse, reading this blog post, reading into Highfield’s relative public silence and reading the personal
email correspondence I’ve had with Highfield’s executive director its clear that that both organizations actually mock the outcry. Its not unlike the way the majority of the media presents the concept of anthropomorphic climate change – they can’t dedicate any time to the issue without also inserting pregnant doubt into the validity of the very concept, even though there’s something like less than one percent of peer reviewed scientists that question its validity.
What a shame it is that this proven and diabolical issue is not on either’s radar screen.
I’d buy one
And this in their original email newsletter: “Drawing upon some of the finest ladies in the Hardwick local agricultural scene and some of the finest compost in the world, we’re dishin’ up a calendar of hotties n’ humus for the 2013 year. This item is so hot it’ll make your neighbors’ compost piles hot, beware.”
Here is some of the original language around the calendar campaign, which has been pulled and no longer can be viewed on the Kickstarter update (although the original mechanic endorsement in Update # 2, along with the original photos, can still be seen under UPDATES) : “We all know some car-shops have some pretty revealing posters and calendars of models on their shop wall. Bring a little class to your mechanic’s shop – who knows, maybe he’ll like it enough to give you a discount on your next oil change. Package includes 2 Full 2013 calendars featuring the “Hotties of Humus”, just as steamy as our compost piles. Buy one for you and one for your mechanic. Bump up your pledge to $70 and we’ll send you 2 super-hot calendars sealed with a kiss from one of our models. See our new update for an endorsement from our local mechanics.”
Jean Kilbourne’s film helps lay out why Highfield’s calendar and sexist ad language (which by the way, was not fully disclosed in this article) is so damaging to our society and to ALL genders. Here’s the film: http://vimeo.com/20024751 for those who want to educate themselves. For the record, there were more than “6” people who expressed they thought the ad/campaign was offensive and I’m certain there are many more who feel the same way. And, as several of us expressed to Highfields Center and Seven Days, the photos and ad language expressed via Highfield’s campaign were nothing near “cheeky” and cannot be compared to the other, non-objectifying previously created fundraising calendars mentioned in this article. Like one of the commentators mentions below – the problem is not nudity (and no one protested nudity). The problem is around objectifying, demeaning photographs and language and the “socially progressive” organization’s continued self-defense and justification of such material. This IS a social justice issue. I hope that Highfields Center and other “socially progressive” organizations educate themselves on these issues and become socially mature enough to start promoting empowerment and self-respect of all genders, instead of distributing and defending the opposite.
Men ARE objectified, more and more so……but just because we’re starting to objectify other genders doesn’t make objectification “OK”. Jean Kilbourne’s film helps lay out why Highfield’s calendar and sexist ad language (which by the way, was not fully disclosed in this article) is so damaging to our society and to ALL genders. Here’s the film: http://vimeo.com/20024751
I think it is very odd.
Men of Maple Corners showed men going about mundane tasks, and just happening to be naked. Hotties n’ Humus, at least the previews, seems to be explicit poses delivering messages contrary to a business that sells compost. As I mentioned in a letter to Highfields, “the photograph of the woman with widespread legs, vegetables, and a
placard could suggest a caption such as ‘F*CK COMPOST–USE
MIRACLE-GRO(TM)’ or, considering the glyphs on the placard and the
placard’s placement, ‘COMPOST IS GOING DOWN’.” But perhaps that was meant ironically?
I would guess you don’t hear “that’s objectifying men” mostly because there’s not a lucrative capitalist industry profiting from same. Men are exploited in other ways, typically, usually by social pressures to squash down sensitivity and promote swaggering. A good starting point to learn about this is Jean Kilbourne’s film, Killing Us Softly. In 45 minutes she sums up 40 years of female images in advertising.
And furthermore…I’ve had it up to here with my body being up for discussion in public forums. Suffering through presidential candidates discussing policy for my insides is bad enough, but local socially-responsible businesses informing me about my own arousals is too much.