The Worst Thing We Can Become Is What Other People Think We Are
The last thing a nearly fifty-year-old woman wants to be doing is writing about vaginas and tourism slogans, and yet, here it is.
Another thing I don’t particularly want to be is angry. Not because I worry about the angry feminist trope, or that I’ll get some reputation as a grouch without a sense of humour.
I don’t want to be angry because it’s a time and energy suck, and I don’t have enough of either of those things as it is. As I stewed over this instead of sleeping, I trained that internal interrogation on my feelings. This morning, I looked at the emotions wheel. If you don’t know what that is, well, you are welcome.
Anger and disgust
where my primaries, which drilled down into Humiliated, Let Down, Betrayed, Disrespected, Violated, Furious, Disappointed, Frustrated, Embarrassed, Appalled, Horrified. Not to get all Brené Brown on you, but the particular emotion wheel I looked at didn’t have Shame, and that one was big. I’m ashamed of my city, ashamed when friends from around the world send articles and news and say, Isn’t this where you live?
Anger is easy to get in touch with. It’s all over the place, and it’s why I generally don’t spend much time on social media.
The Experience Regina debacle made it pretty darn easy to be angry. It’s a righteous anger, fuelled by the private messages from women expressing their own versions of disbelief, frustration, rage, etc. It’s also fanned by the responses to our collective frustration. Sorry you feel this way, and comments like ‘Yes, parts of the campaign were just wrong. But not all of it.’
There has been mostly silence from many of the players, if not silence then the refusal to can the whole thing and start fresh; the fact we still have no idea what the process was, we don’t know who approved what and when. Major brands once enthusiastically calling it out now mostly quiet, hoping it all goes away.
I fear is our anger is for nought. That it will, like things do, fade. In the grand scheme of things is a sexist, stupid tourism campaign important? There are budgets and homelessness and issues that need our attention in a way that makes this feel trivial. And yet somehow this does not feel trivial, it feels absolutely critical. And I worry Experience Regina will live on in some muted form as even I question the value in arguing my point, in speaking for those who cannot or will not, and yet who feel as I do, and in some cases, even more so.
Let me be clear. Without a complete and total campaign killing, without abject apologies and absolute candor, without the folks who should owning the decisions made that mean we are all thinking about this when there are far, far more important things to think about in this City, all this rage and grief will have accomplished nothing. This matters far more than simply ensuring the women of this City feel respected and safe. It matters far more than each of us knowing we aren’t the joke, that our bodies are not fodder for cheap laughs in campaigns paid for out of the tax dollars we contribute.
It matters because when you humiliate a good portion of your city, when you embarrass your people on an international stage, when it isn’t a late-night talk show host desperate for content or a rock star cracking a joke that probably felt brilliant back then, when it’s your city, your councillor, your elected officials, your event marketing team, your boards, your clothing brands and marketing agencies and alcohol makers and whoever else decides to use the slogans, well, the people of that city are going to do one of two things.
We will internalize the misogyny. Go along with the joke, laugh, crack it ourselves. (Endless, isn’t it? The whole thing has kind-of ruined language.)
Or we’ll stay mad. Call it out when we see it, stop others in their tracks. Maybe some of us will move away when we can. If we can’t, if we stay, it will never, ever be with the pride we used to have.
How do I encourage others to visit? Host friends from away? What about the international students who study in our schools – can we feel good about the parents who have trusted us with their children? Would we send our children to a place where women’s bodies are the joke? When we sit on a plane or take a train in a faraway place, make connections with others, when they ask where we come from, what will we say? And how will we feel about it as we tell them the truth, or the times when we lie because we just don’t have it in us?
Living here is a choice, right? Just like anywhere is, and if we want the money to do the things – whether it’s ending homelessness or funding a new swimming pool or whatever – and we need our population to be proud ambassadors. Allowing this campaign to proceed in any way does not serve our City, nor does not serve the people who are tough and fun and interesting and deserve better than slogans we wouldn’t want a child to repeat.