Pay As You Wish

I just saw a story on ABC about a small cafe in Boomfield, NY called Connie’s Grapevine Cafe.  The owners of the cafe have decided to combat the recession by offering a “Pay As You Wish” policy on select menu items.  They say they realize that it is getting difficult for people to go out to eat in our current economic situation and they feel that should not happen in America.  So they are choosing good over greed.  They “refuse to let greed kill America” according to the owners.  They would rather get $.25 for a plate of spaghetti and meatballs and put a smile on their customer’s face than charge a set price and risk people not coming at all. 

The customers honestly give what they can.  Sometimes it’s not much, but the next time it might be more and the owners of Connie’s say that is just fine with them.  I wish I was in Boomfield right now.  I order a big plate of whatever is on the PAYW menu.  I’ve got a $20 bill with their name on it.

If you live anywhere near Boomfiled, NY pay them a visit.  Here is a link to their website.  It has directions and everything.  Go on a Wednesday for Open Mic Night or on a Saturday for Live Music.  Be sure to take plenty of money…or not.

The Story of Stuff

Have you seen the video entitled “The Story of Stuff”? I have. If you haven’t, watch it now and then come back to this blog entry and finish reading it. I’ll wait.

Great! Now you will have a better idea where I am coming from. So…stuff…I have too much of it. I bet you have too much of it. AND we are approaching the time of year where we accumulate even more of it. Often times it it stuff we never even wanted in the first place – like the gifts you were stuck with from the the 7 White Elephant (aka Dirty Santa or my least favorite Chinese Christmas) gift exchanges in which you were forced to participate last holiday season. That is just one example. There are plenty more I can assure you.

So…this year I am going to do my part to put an end to it. I am asking everyone in my life that is planning to get me a gift this year to resist the temptation to buy me more stuff. Seriously. I don’t want any more stuff this holiday season or any other for that matter.

I also understand that it feels good to give and we call this the season of giving. I don’t want to be a Scrooge McGrinch…I love this time of year. I just feel like we have lost sight of what it is all about. So, here are a couple of options that I believe are much more in line with what the season is all about:

1. Make a donation to Responsible Men at www.responsiblemen.net. I am trying to raise money to attend the Men Can Stop Rape training this July in Washington DC. The total cost will be about $2,000 including the travel, room and board, and the cost of the workshop. I want to go so that I can make Responsible Men a better organization.

2. Make a donation in my name to their favorite charity or cause. Chances are, I like that charity as well. That makes both of us feel good.

The beauty of this is there is no stuff. There is also no plastic packaging, gift box, wrapping paper, plastic bows, tape, ribbon, cards, or any other stuff that just gets trashed anyway.

Imagine if everyone in your family decided to do this. Then imagine if everyone in your family got all of their friends to do the same with their families and so on. Imagine the tremendous amount of good that would come of that. Imagine the power in a movement like that. Imagine what could be accomplished because of that.

Now stop imagining that and start doing it. Make a commitment this holiday season to ask your loved ones to make a donation to something you care about in your name. Offer to do the same for them. Make it a tradition. You never know…you just might change the world in ways you can’t imagine.

The Real “Axe Effect”

A friend of mine always says “In life, you can make choices that give you more choices or you can make choices that give you fewer choices”.  If you are lucky, you have someone in your life that is helping you make those decisions.  However, it is far more likely you have been kicked out of the proverbial nest to learn to fly before you hit the ground.  Like most of us, you are left to make these decisions on your own.

 

So, how do we make decisions and where do we get our information from?  Our friends?  Our families?  A gut feeling? The answer to these questions is usually “yes”, but they are not the only sources.  One other I’d like to focus on is corporate America – the creators and producers of pop culture.  You might not even know who they are by name, but I am sure you are familiar with their products.  For example, you may not have heard of corporate giant Unilever. However, I bet you are familiar with one of their brands – Axe male grooming products.

 

Axe is a cultural icon as far as products go.  It is the number one selling male grooming product line in the world according to Unilever.  It is also one of the fastest growing brands in the Unilever family.  It is no coincidence that it is so popular.  Axe has gained it’s prominence by lots of advertising.  Sadly, Unilever subscribes to the old advertising adage that “sex sells”.  If you have ever seen one of their advertisements, you know that they try to sell Axe by making it seem as if women turn into mindless, sex-hungry animals after one whiff of any Axe product.  In addition, they show that even “average Joes” become irresistible to these beautiful, barely clothed women by the hundreds.  What is wrong with this picture?  

 

Advertisements, like those created for Axe, actually do some pretty hefty damage to both women and men by helping form unrealistic and even dangerous gender roles.  For women, their value and purpose in life are tied directly to their sexuality.  In other words, without their sexuality women have no value or purpose.  They are portrayed as sexual objects that are there to serve men’s needs and they are a dime a dozen. Women are also dehumanized by making them seem as if they are not in control of themselves or that they have lost free will.  

 

For men, these ads connect men’s value to their sexuality as well, but in a different way.  These ads reinforce the idea that as a man the more sex you have the more of a man you are.  In other words, they send the clear message that men are supposed to have sex as often as possible with as many women as possible in order to thrive in male culture.  If men do not adhere to this standard, they risk losing their social standing within male culture.   In the end, we are left with the same message that is echoed throughout society today.  The message is that men have all of the power and the only way for women to share in that is to be sexually available to men.  Also, there is a double standard.  Men are valued for having multiple intimate partners and women are devalued for the same thing.  In society, men who have had a large number of sexual partners are labeled as “studs” or “pimps” – both considered to be compliments.  In contrast, women who have had a large number of sexual partners are labeled as “sluts” or “whores” – both are obviously considered insults. It is this power imbalance between men and women that creates a culture of abuse that can lead to domestic and sexual violence.               

      

When we, as consumers, support companies like Unilever and others that engage in similar marketing strategies, we are collectively sending the message that the objectification and sexualization of women are acceptable practices. Effectively, we are paving the way for dating violence and sexual assault to occur.  Keep in mind that Unilever is certainly not the only guilty party.  There are a large number of companies that employ marketing campaigns which degrade women to sell their products.  Remember this the next time you go to buy something designed to make you smell better.  You might just realize that it stinks.

 

Want to let Unilever know how you feel about the “Axe Effect”? 

  

Visit their websites at: 

www.unilever.com 

www.unileverusa.com

www.ideas4unilever.com

 

Check out some of the Axe Print Ads:

 

 

 

 

Refreshingly Frustrated

I recently had a discussion with some high school aged youth (mostly males) regarding gender roles.  More specifically, the discussion was about how males and females are socialized and how that creates space for sexual and domestic violence to occur.  The youth ranged in age from 14-18 and were assigned to the juvenile justice alternative education program for a variety of offenses on their home campuses.  The group participated at a high level and had some fantastic insights during the group activities we did.  I was pleasantly surprised by the level of engagement of these youth.  Honestly, my expectations were somewhat lower.

The discussion was only scheduled for an hour each day for two days.  Everything went very well until the last minute of the first day’s discussion.  It was in that last minute that I realized just how much work there is to be done.  As I was wrapping up the group I pointed out that in today’s society men have most of the power.  I paused for a moment to let that sink in and before I spoke again one of the young men looked at me with a hint of disgust and said “whose side are you on anyway?”.  I was shocked.  I knew that there was a certain amount of sexist attitudes and beliefs in the room, but this comment caught me off guard.  I guess I had never really look at it as men vs. women or us vs. them.  The notion of being on one side or another hadn’t occurred to me.  At first I thought he might have been employing a bit of sarcasm, but the stone cold look on his face told me otherwise.

I responded to him by saying that if preventing rape and violence against women is the women’s side, then I am on the women’s side.  However, I knew immedately that my answer was wrong…but I wasn’t sure how or why.  It sounded right, but it didn’t feel right.  I spent the rest of the day doing my daily grind, but this young man’s question kept resurfacing into my consciousness.  Finally, I realized that the young man had unintentionally asked me a trick question.  It occured to me that there is no men’s side and women’s side.  We are all in it together and we are all part of a much larger picture.

The next day, I made sure I brought this up again in the group.  I had to make sure they young people in that room understood that there is no “us vs. them”.  There is just people.  This young man seemed to appreciate the fact that I had really considered what he had to say even though he didn’t agree with me.  He also used it as an opportunity to push me in other ways.  While that was frustrating, it was refreshing to have someone in the audience who was willing to question what I was saying.  It made me do some deeper thinking about what I really believe and how I convey that to others.

Black Friday

Just how much is a human life worth?  Apparently as little as $9 on Long Island, NY.  Yep.  Nine whole dollars. You might be wondering how I came to this conclusion.  Well, shortly after 5 a.m. on Friday, November 28, 2008 (Black Friday) a man named Jdimytai Damour was trampled by a stampede of bargain hunters at a WalMart in Valley Stream, NY.  Some of the hot ticket items on sale that day were a Samsung 50 inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as “The Incredible Hulk” for…you guessed it…$9. 

According to reports over 2,000 crazed shoppers plowed through the doors as Damour tried to open the store for business.  In the aftermath, Damour (a 34 year old seasonal employee) and several others were engulfed and trampled by the impatient mob.  Damour was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.  Four others were also taken to the hospital for minor injuries, including a 28 year old pregnant woman.  Witnesses described the scene as “utter chaos” and one onlooker described the shoppers as “savages”.  Meanwhile, at a WalMart just 15miles south of Valley Stream, a woman was trampled by a similar mob of post-Thanksgiving day shoppers.  She suffered minor injuries as well.

It seems to me that incidences like these are occurring more and more frequently.  Should we blame the stores for offering these unbelievable bargains?  Or for not implementing proper security measures? Should we blame manufacturers for keeping prices high at other times throughout the year?  Should we blame the media for whipping consumers into a frenzy during the holidays?  The answer to all of these questions is yes.  However not to the degree we, as consumers, would like to believe.  In reality, only a small amount of blame can go toward the “consumerism machine” as I like to call it.  It is time we admit that we, the consumer, are to blame.  It is ultimately our choice to shop or not to shop – or when and where we shop and what we buy.  We can decide whether or not to camp out for 48 hours in hopes of getting 15% off a Nintendo Wii or a Tickle Me Elmo.  We also decide if we will enter a building in a civil fashion or if we are going to storm the electronics department as if it were the shores of Normandy. 

Unfortunately, we choose the latter all too often.  We lose sight of what it means to be part of the human race and we believe that feelings, emotions, relationships, interactions, and even lives are disposable.  It seems the things that make us human are the things for which we have little regard.  It is in this state that we become liars, cheaters, burglars, murderers, terrorists, and rapists.  It is in this state that we, ironically,  become less human.  Ultimately, if we do not change this disturbing pattern, it will be our downfall. 

You see, the scariest thing about the Black Friday incident at the Valley Stream WalMart is that the shoppers that trampled Jdimytai Damour to death didn’t stop to help him.  Many of them stepped right over him as they made their way to the racks of “Door Busters” waiting for them inside.  As the store managers learned that their employee had been killed, they tried to close the store.  They informed shoppers of the tragedy and asked them to leave the store.  Sadly, most of the shoppers ignored these requests and kept shopping.  And the woman who was injured in a similar incident 15 miles away waited until after she had done her shopping to file an injury report with the store. 

In the end, I don’t believe that we can do much to stop the “consumerism machine”.  After all, it is made up of businesses who exist to make money and to get us to spend money.  That is not going away, nor should it (although that is not to say some changes are needed – but that is for another time).  What we can do is think critically about what, when, where, and why as we consume.  We must become a society of critical, conscious consumers.  The benefits of doing this are priceless. 

That’s my $9.02 worth.