Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

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

Post by CivoLee » Sat Feb 27, 2021 12:06 pm

tribi9 wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 10:03 am
Guitars are not :

Her
She
Sexy
Juanita
Brazilians
Ladies

Its fucking stupid. Really.
Sexism is bad, but let's not forget that the original shape of a guitar was designed around the body of a woman.

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

Post by pawnzito » Sat Feb 27, 2021 1:49 pm

CivoLee wrote:
Sat Feb 27, 2021 12:06 pm
Sexism is bad, but let's not forget that the original shape of a guitar was designed around the body of a woman.
Just because it started that way doesn't mean we need to perpetuate it.

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

Post by SignoftheDragon » Sat Feb 27, 2021 2:47 pm

I don't consider calling a guitar 'her' or 'she' misogynistic in itself, nor am I offended (or give any attention to those who are) by this behavior alone.

Nor would I take offense, etc. to someone labeling a guitar 'he' or 'him.'

Now, stepping beyond that boundary by adding sexual connotations (among other dickish practices) is definitely putting up those red flags, moving further into the unacceptable range.

Making your guitar 'scream' or 'moan' or 'cry' or even 'wail' can be acceptable parlance, but can be used similarly to sexualize & draw it into the unacceptable range.

I sometimes have been guilty of flirting with, or even crossing those lines- I've been known to address my main guitar as 'The First Lady' and the several additional similar guitars I have had as the 'sister-wives,' (a wink-and-elbow-nudge jab at some of my local culture here in Utah) but I find it is growing less meaningful/amusing even to myself. Maybe time to leave it behind altogether...

Plus, I only have 2 Surfcaster 12s in the stable at the moment.

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

Post by Maggieo » Sat Feb 27, 2021 8:45 pm

pawnzito wrote:
Sat Feb 27, 2021 1:49 pm
CivoLee wrote:
Sat Feb 27, 2021 12:06 pm
Sexism is bad, but let's not forget that the original shape of a guitar was designed around the body of a woman.
Just because it started that way doesn't mean we need to perpetuate it.
Not only that, but that idea about women's bodies isn't true. Only after the idea acoustic shape was crafted, did people start to notice its resemblance to human anatomy. So, it was sexist, Spanish, humbug from the get-go.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by CivoLee » Sat Feb 27, 2021 10:44 pm

(flame suit on)

It's very possible to equate the idea of the guitar as female in terms of making love instead of sexual domination.

Why would the poster choose Brazilian as a specific term? Do the guitars in the post have Brazilian rosewood fingerboards?

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

Post by HarlowTheFish » Sat Feb 27, 2021 11:13 pm

CivoLee wrote:
Sat Feb 27, 2021 10:44 pm
(flame suit on)

It's very possible to equate the idea of the guitar as female in terms of making love instead of sexual domination.

Why would the poster choose Brazilian as a specific term? Do the guitars in the post have Brazilian rosewood fingerboards?
I don't disagree on principle, and yes that's probably why they went with this.

As a Brazilian who's literally sat next to my SO's grandmother while she asked me if we had cars, the internet, and running water at Thanksgiving dinner, the bigger issue is that a lot of America seems blind to anything south of Texas and has these weird, backwards ideas about what goes on there. I've had my nationality weirdly sexualized (and I'm a pretty average dude -- not hot, and not a woman, so imagine being either or both of those too), gotten weird comments like mentioned above, been told to "stop speaking Spanish this is America" which, okay whatever but if you're gonna be xenophobic at least get your languages right, etc.

There's this fetishization of Latin America and the people who inhabit it, like it's some exotic wonderland of endless parties and shit, in the same way that in some circles there's a weird fetishization of guitars, and they meet in a really uncomfortable way in this post. It's like "yes let's anthropomorphize these guitars as sexy women" but also "let's objectify these sexy women as playthings for your pleasure" which to me comes off as worse than either one on its own (and, to be clear, I'm not super down with either).

Heck, I anthropomorphize some of my guitars as women, and my bass if Phat Steve. Part of it is the shape, part of it is the voice, part of it is I grew up in a very women-heavy family so that's just where I instinctively go with names. And yeah, I respect that with any instrument there's a level of intimacy as a musician, whether or not you've named it, so I'm not gonna knock it if you're gonna be respectful about it, but I keep my bedroom goings-on private, same as I do my guitar-related ones. We can anthropomorphize stuff, we can give our guitars whatever names we want, but the point where you name it is the point where you gotta chill with the weird stuff and give it the same respect you would if it was a person -- that's where the anthro part comes in.

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

Post by PorkyPrimeCut » Sat Feb 27, 2021 11:24 pm

Sure, if it's a rule of your language to automatically asign "he" or "she" to an object that's obviously a different matter entirely. If it's simply your choice though, as it is in English, I find it weird & a little bit sad. Anything beyond that, like calling it Lucille for instance, is just plain creepy in my book.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by pawnzito » Sat Feb 27, 2021 11:40 pm

A number of people have mentioned bb king and Lucille , but like...have you listened his music? Especially his early stuff was crazy sexist. “Don’t answer the door when I’m not at home. Never trust a women unless she’s dead...etc etc”.
Not a good example to defend making guitars women. (Side note I love bb King, but for sure do not look to him as a model when it comes to sexism).

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

Post by garyptaszek » Sun Feb 28, 2021 12:19 am

tribi9 wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:19 pm
That's the point, it is so normalized that it doesn't even register as offensive anymore and that's what's so fucked up about it.
This +100000000

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

Post by kgbAttack » Sun Feb 28, 2021 2:00 am

raphaël wrote:
Sat Feb 27, 2021 11:46 am
PorkyPrimeCut wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 2:53 pm
tribi9 wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 10:03 am
Guitars are not :

Her
She
Sexy
Juanita
Brazilians
Ladies

Its fucking stupid. Really.
This, 100%
Actually, in some languages guitars are "she" and "her". Speaking for myself, as a french person, we don't have a "it". Therefore, all our objects denominations are "he" or "she". A guitar in french is a "she", and not a "it", which would be fucking stupid :P
It took me a whiiiiiile to get to write "it" for a guitar on that very forum when I refer to a guitar. It's an effort really.
Same here (Italian) - those debates inflame the world but they should be always contextualized to the language used. There's no universal solution to misogynism and racism in languages and the lens of American English is inadequate for most of the world languages.

I personally did not see any malice in the post, I guess that could be my own fault, but yeah it's indelicate and unthoughtful at best.

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

Post by Larry Mal » Sun Feb 28, 2021 8:18 am

BB King didn't name his guitars "Lucille" in an effort to anthropomorphize them, he named them that as a reminder to himself:

In the winter of 1949, King played at a dance hall in Twist, Arkansas. The hall was heated by a barrel half-filled with burning kerosene set in the middle of the dance floor, a fairly common practice at the time. During a performance, two men began to fight, knocking over the barrel and sending the burning fuel across the floor. The hall burst into flames and was evacuated.

Once outside however, King realized that he had left his guitar inside so he went back into the burning building to retrieve his beloved $30 Gibson guitar. King learned the next day that the two men who started the fire had been fighting over a woman who worked at the hall named Lucille. King did not know Lucille but named that guitar, and every guitar he subsequently owned, Lucille, as a reminder never again to do something as stupid as run into a burning building or fight over a woman.


From here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucille_(guitar)

This is not me absolving him of sexism or anything, I just thought that the story was slightly more interesting.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by FrankRay » Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:08 am

I think the blues would disappear in a puff of smoke if it was held to account for sexism. I mean, that's kind of the point, isn't it?

Songs about our darkest fears, and most wanton cravings?? Like a kettle giving off steam. Gentrification of culture always assumes that these feelings go away if they're made socially unacceptable, but I'm guessing that's a bit optimistic, personally.

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

Post by Larry Mal » Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:37 am

FrankRay wrote:
Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:08 am
I think the blues would disappear in a puff of smoke if it was held to account for sexism. I mean, that's kind of the point, isn't it?
I mean, maybe it should disappear in a puff of smoke, this song certainly should.

https://genius.com/Little-walter-boom-b ... hts-lyrics

It's a song about a man threatening to beat a woman unconscious for daring to leave him. He keeps referring to her as "his" although clearly she doesn't agree with that.

It would be hard to imagine a worse song than this, and I think it's pretty fair to call it out for the rape culture bullshit it is. It was covered by who knows how many Baby Boomers over the years, I saw George Thoroughgood (sp.) cover it once back in the day probably in the late 90's. This message had a long life and made a lot of impact. The music and stories that a culture tells about itself reveals a lot about it, and this song reveals something very fucking wrong.

I guess I wouldn't feel all that comfortable with playing music around my boys indicating that if their mother left me that I would beat her for that and that's how a "real man" solves that issue.

This Fender ad is really just more gross to me and out of touch more than anything else, then again I might have simply glossed over it and that probably says something about who I am and how I was raised. I certainly think it's probably a good thing that Fender was called out by people more insightful than I am, I'm glad to see Fender back off this shit and pull it, especially since Fender is working pretty hard to sell their products to women.

So, is Fender a "woke" company for doing that? Not necessarily, but the real situation is even better. Even if every Fender executive is a fucking pig the fact still remains that women have a lot of money now and Fender needs that money, so Fender will either be a company that women want to do business with or they will pay the price.

That's not nothing, that's probably the way that the world becomes better since relying on men to change seems, well... anyway, seeing Fender pull this stupid ad and other companies forced to reckon with all the other stupid ones out there is a good thing.

Some people deride this as cancel culture, but to me, it's simply various demographics making it clear that if you don't market to us in a respectful way, we are going to punish you in the marketplace. I see only upsides to this.
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Re: Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

Post by AztecGold » Sun Feb 28, 2021 12:16 pm

I saw that post and never thought anything about it. "Brazillian" to guitarists obviously means Brazillian rosewood and guitars hang round your neck or sit in your lap. I would guess the people who flew into a rage probably don't know about brazillian rosewood and misunderstood what they were enraged about. But I suppose on social media that's kind of how it goes. Everybody loves to get angry about something they know little about

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

Post by Telliot » Sun Feb 28, 2021 12:35 pm

AztecGold wrote:
Sun Feb 28, 2021 12:16 pm
You honestly think this forum is full of people who don’t know what they’re talking about? The Brazilian reference was supposed read as innuendo, and that’s how it was taken. It isn’t about finding things to get angry about, it’s about calling things out in the hopes we can change attitudes.

Reading this thread (last post withstanding), I’m heartened to see so many people on the right side of this issue.
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