Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by BoringPostcards » Mon Mar 08, 2021 6:16 pm

Guitar culture needs to divorce itself from Boomer humor eternally.
Let's take down wife jokes next. I cringe when people mention how mad their wife will be about their collection growing or some dumb trade.
I don't even use the word wife. I call her 'my lady' or 'my partner'. Wife has ownership built into it as a concept. I don't own K. We just love each other and go through this crap together.
I will be forty soon, and I can't handle my parents generation anymore at all. Good thing my father doesn't fall too much into it with his humor. He is pretty good at staying fresh and up to date.
It's so awkward around some of his friends. Yikes.
This forum is not free from this type of posts but it is a very far cry away from places like TGP, where you are likely to see something like this in nearly every single thread.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by Embenny » Mon Mar 08, 2021 7:00 pm

BoringPostcards wrote:
Mon Mar 08, 2021 6:16 pm
Wife has ownership built into it as a concept.
I agree about abolishing all "if the wife lets me" or "don't tell the wife!" misogyny, but I disagree strongly about the term "wife" implying ownership.

My wife loves using that term, and loves when I use it. I actually wouldn't use it nearly as often if she wasn't such a fan. We had a Reconstructionist Jewish wedding, and the most prominently displayed piece of art in our home is our Ketubah, which is a Jewish marriage contract. It's basically a written form of our vows, and like anything Reconstructionist, ours reclaims and reshapes an archaic and misogynistic tradition in an image reflective of our values, instead of shaping our values to be reflective of a tradition.

The orthodox Ketubah of antiquity is essentially a legal contract outlining the obligations of the husband to feed, clothe, and shtup her, and spelling out a monetary penalty for divorcing her.

Ours is a deeply personal message to each other, with quite literally none of the traditional elements beyond our signatures, and signing it on our wedding day was our way to reclaim and update a tradition that wouldn't have otherwise fit our values. I won't go on about Reconstructionism, but the elevator pitch would be that it's the only form of Judaism that openly welcomes atheists (like my wife) and agnostics (like me), since they're not even insistent that god is real as opposed to an abstract concept. Nothing is written in stone, and you're encouraged to define your own relationship with traditions.

So, we enjoy being husband and wife, because we quite literally spelled out the terms under which we were married as such, none of which involves or implies ownership. You're welcome to shirk the terms, because they can mean whatever you want them to mean to you (including nothing at all). There are of course legal implications, where the terms are pretty clearly spelled out, but we were already common-law when we got married, so our legal relationship and property/tax rights didn't change by having a wedding. The only thing that changed was the legal process for hitting CTRL-Z on the relationship, which is not something we fear.

To get back on the topic of guitars, probably to the chagrin of TGP boomers, my wife has only ever encouraged me to buy them. She trusts me not to spend money we budgeted elsewhere, she knows that music is one of the greatest sources of joy in my life, and she cares when a new guitar excites me. A couple have been gifts from her. A shocking concept, surely, for partners to be supportive of each other's pursuit of happiness. A real ball and chain, she is.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by Fiddy » Mon Mar 08, 2021 7:10 pm

Agree with Mike, saying "my wife" doesn't imply ownership.. Calling her mrs tribi9, if i had one, I think would.

Im happily divorced btw. :D

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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Mar 08, 2021 7:26 pm

I call my wife "Mrs. Larry" as kind of a joke about patriarchy and such but it's not really my joke, I used to work alongside a wonderful St. Louis police office named Fred who adored his wife and called her "Mrs. Freddy". He was very proud of her and brought her along to meet everyone even though we worked in a dive bar. I liked her and went to her funeral, I hope Fred is doing OK himself. He is a sweetheart, if you wanted to do a caricature of a big city cop, that would be Fred, cop mustache and all that. He called people he was familiar with "babe", which is not a St. Louis thing, and it doesn't get more St. Louis than Fred, who would not spend money outside the city that employed him. He called me babe.

It was easy to see that they had something special, so I adopted that. I also refer to my wife as "my old lady" because she's considerably younger than I am and I'm hilarious like that. Hilarious.

I told my wife about the Gear Page type assholes and as a joke whenever she questions any spending I do- which is never very serious- I start going on about "How many shoes you got in that closet, huh? How much money did you spend on all them shoes?"

She's a clay artist. She doesn't have but a couple pairs of shoes at any time. None of them are ever in any kind of closet.

I'm trying to sell the concept of me buying a Les Paul Recording guitar made in the year I was born to her even now.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by andy_tchp » Mon Mar 08, 2021 8:23 pm

On the topic of socia media failures.

Image

Happy International Women's Day!
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Mar 08, 2021 8:40 pm

See, now that kind of pisses me off. It takes no time to know that Burger King was actually doing the right thing there, saying that women belong in professional kitchens, talking about how underrepresented women are in such an environment, and they even put some money towards a scholarship that would go towards women wanting a career in professional kitchens.

And that was made clear in anything you could have read about it, so give the context, don't just put the image up there without understanding the meaning. This is in no sense the same as what Fender was doing.

This is also something personal to me in the sense that I spent a decade as a chef, and the lack of women there was something that we talked about even then in the 90's.

Burger King gives statistics talking about how women are grimly represented in professional kitchens entirely, and they mention that women that run kitchens is 7%, which sounds right. Them calling attention to that and putting money towards it is a good thing and I'm a little irritated that social media is getting holier than thou about this fucking shit.

And I'm not naive about it... I know they were idiots:

The Burger King Foundation plans to award $25,000 each to two female employees to enroll in culinary studies under the Helping Equalize Restaurants scholarship, according to its website.

The reaction was mixed, to say the least. Many commenters called out the deliberate use of the sexist trope to get clicks and headlines. Others accused it of missing the mark.

“Surely it’s not the day for this? Any day tbh. Grabbing media attention by being deliberately obtuse? By reinforcing stereotypes (even in apparently good humour?) Not good marketing or behaviour,” one critic tweeted.

“How much more did these ads cost than those scholarships are worth?” another Twitter user wrote.


Still, they were talking about a real thing, they sort of meant well, they did at least put some money where their mouth was, they did apologize, and they certainly were not guilty of saying that a woman's place in unpaid in a domestic kitchen, so let's at least judge them on what they were really saying.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by andy_tchp » Mon Mar 08, 2021 9:18 pm

I think it was probably deliberate and a little tongue in cheek. They could've mentioned the 2 scholarships instead of hanging a one-liner out like that as bait.

Or maybe they could just hire more women to begin with? I don't know the situation in other countries, but far as I know the kids working the fryers and grills in Hungry Jacks (the .au equivalent of 'Burger King', there was some kind of legal battle with an already established local business about the name) don't have/develop/receive any culinary qualifications, they get process-based 'on the job' training and maybe a (largely meaningless once you have any kind of experience/references) 'certificate II in hospitality'.

I don't really know the answer, but there's a lot of machismo, bullshit, drug abuse, mental illness and out-and-out psychopathy from 'senior' men in hospitality-based workplaces. Getting rid of THAT would be a hell of a start. The female representation in baker/pastry-chef jobs was incredibly low when I was still in the industry (not for nearly a couple of decades now). I can only recall two during my time - one business owner, and one apprentice, who I believe actually stopped to follow a different career path after only a year or so.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by Larry Mal » Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:48 am

And I do get all of that, none of that is inaccurate, my problem is that people jumped to attack Burger King as if they were saying something that they were not.

I mean, you can argue that the way the phrased it was dumb, you can argue that they should be hiring more women, you can argue that the amount they put towards the scholarship was way too paltry to make a difference, and all of that is great, because that does continue the conversation and it's a conversation worth continuing.

But to simply attack Burger King for saying that a woman's place within the family is in the kitchen when that is emphatically not at all what they are saying- which would take about two seconds to learn- isn't helpful in any way and it's just outrage for the sake of being outraged.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by SignoftheDragon » Tue Mar 09, 2021 9:12 am

Meh- Burger King wasn't any more sensitive to the tone of the day with that one-liner, though. Even if they were backing it up with some decent stuff.

Maybe a "Remember when we used to say..." kind of thing, and then lead into how it could be actually used in today's context?

Anyway-

Having been guilty of a) buying guitars without consulting my wife; and b) spending more than budgeted on gear, etc; in the past, I do tend to reference that those conversations will have to take place in order to keep the peace. Sometimes I reference this jokingly in my posts, but I try to keep those things up-front and in the light these days- just because it has been such a sensitive topic in the past.

I in no way consider the word 'wife' to imply anything other than 'partner.' No ownership, no lordship over, etc. but i definitely have a responsibility to keep her in the loop, and to recognize and treat sensitive matters with the care that they deserve.

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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by andy_tchp » Tue Mar 09, 2021 10:08 pm

I'm not outraged, nor do I use social media.

I just thought it was funny.

I also don't care. Go find someone else to pick a fight with.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by natthu » Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:54 pm

Larry Mal wrote:
Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:48 am
...But to simply attack Burger King for saying that a woman's place within the family is in the kitchen when that is emphatically not at all what they are saying- which would take about two seconds to learn- isn't helpful in any way and it's just outrage for the sake of being outraged.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that, if you want to avoid controversy these days, your social media contributions need to be completely water tight and idiot proof (it's a demanding and unobtainable standard, I know). Whatever they intended, Burger King left plenty of wiggle room for either purposeful or accidental misinterpretation of their message. As such, thoughtless out-of-context outrage is going to be the guaranteed result from someone. You can't rely on people to be helpful or to put an extra two seconds of effort in, those are not things.

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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by Larry Mal » Wed Mar 10, 2021 6:05 am

andy_tchp wrote:
Tue Mar 09, 2021 10:08 pm
I'm not outraged, nor do I use social media.

I just thought it was funny.

I also don't care. Go find someone else to pick a fight with.
This is social media.

I'll leave the rest of it alone otherwise. You want to talk to me about something, you know where to find me.
Last edited by Larry Mal on Wed Mar 10, 2021 6:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by Larry Mal » Wed Mar 10, 2021 6:14 am

natthu wrote:
Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:54 pm
Larry Mal wrote:
Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:48 am
...But to simply attack Burger King for saying that a woman's place within the family is in the kitchen when that is emphatically not at all what they are saying- which would take about two seconds to learn- isn't helpful in any way and it's just outrage for the sake of being outraged.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that, if you want to avoid controversy these days, your social media contributions need to be completely water tight and idiot proof (it's a demanding and unobtainable standard, I know). Whatever they intended, Burger King left plenty of wiggle room for either purposeful or accidental misinterpretation of their message. As such, thoughtless out-of-context outrage is going to be the guaranteed result from someone. You can't rely on people to be helpful or to put an extra two seconds of effort in, those are not things.
And that is sadly true. This thing, however, happens to be of some mild importance to me professionally and certainly has meaning for me personally, and I was happy to see that someone was talking about something that I cared about. As such it was a little annoying to me to see that people chose to embrace manufactured outrage based on their preference to deliberately not understand what was being said and instead finding happiness in getting the endorphin rush of getting to feel morally superior based on nothing.

Fender did genuinely fuck up, they have been doing pretty good actually these days but some of the boys lapsed into the guitar culture of yesterday that Fender is trying to move away from and make Fender Guitars be more inclusive. And that's fine, Fender got called out, they apologized, and presumably learned. That's what this whole process is hopefully about.

Burger King had done nothing wrong except to think that people might read a second line of text in order to get the meaning of what they were doing, but clickbait bullshit is more important than understanding, showing off your woke bona fides is what's important these days a lot of times, and frankly the second scenario blurs the good done by the first.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by Maggieo » Wed Mar 10, 2021 5:03 pm

For hundreds of years no one made a peep about women or black folks being "cancelled" in culture. Often by violent means.

But now tell a white guy he's being kind of a dick, and he'll scream bloody murder.
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I am not an attorney and this post is for entertainment purposes only. Please consult a licensed attorney in your state for legal advice.

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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by Larry Mal » Wed Mar 10, 2021 5:37 pm

Maggieo wrote:
Wed Mar 10, 2021 5:03 pm
For hundreds of years no one made a peep about women or black folks being "cancelled" in culture. Often by violent means.

But now tell a white guy he's being kind of a dick, and he'll scream bloody murder.
Right? Let's talk about fucking Piers Morgan for a second. Fuck, he went out a punk, didn't he? Called out for complaining endlessly about a woman who gently jilted him, and then he storms off and quits his job and continues to bad mouth her in the press pathetically while she pays him no attention whatsoever.

I mean, he sat there on TV and talked about how he didn't believe that Megan Merkle had thoughts of suicide, which is pretty much the worst fucking thing you can say in any situation, even if you didn't try to date the woman before she married the guy she's with now.

But there he is, running his gob, gets called out on it and stomps around like a child, quits his job like a punk, continues talking shit from the unemployment line.

I mean, I don't care about any of this stuff, I barely know who Morgan is, but I know pathetic when I see it.
Back in those days, everyone knew that if you were talking about Destiny's Child, you were talking about Beyonce, LaTavia, LeToya, and Larry.

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