Some further thoughts (cross-posted from mediagirl.org):

One of the battles in gaining distribution for media content -- movies, books, etc. -- is that you typically cannot control the packaging, the marketing, how the work is positioned. It's very rare indeed for anyone who creates content to control how it's packaged. Blogs are one of the few exceptions these days.

Look at the movie industry, for example. Most important is how the movie is positioned by its marketing. What's the poster like? The trailer? The television spots? What the movie actually is becomes a secondary experience that changes the first impression. Whether the movie overcomes that or not really depends upon how powerful the movie is -- and how pernicious and powerful the marketing itself is.

I have not seen more than one or two of the Oscar nominated films (for all the categories) this year, but I have pretty clear impressions of what each of them is like, is about, and sends as a message. Why? Because of the marketing, the packaging -- how the movies have been presented to the marketplace.

So in this case about the Austin Chronicle cover, my argument is not with Marritt Ingman, but with the editors/publisher who decided to package the article with this imagery. The article becomes the second thing, if not secondary in itself, to the cover and how that artwork positions the BlogHer phenomenon.

Matsu's post on this is very good, btw.

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MediaGirl

How funny - as you were adding your comment, mediagirl, I was updating the post. Thanks for doing so and adding the art!

Eager to hear what every thinks on this one.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

I agree that it is bothersome, but am curious if the editor making the call has been identified and heard from?

On a feminist board I play on, this stupid notion of women out to make men less than resurfaces now and again. I'm tired of having feminism misrepresented and imaged according to men's fanatasies, and not the reality of issues feminism deals with.

Feminism is continuously misrepresented both by this nonsense and by the biggest mouth's in media finding the most radical of opinion and ascribing it to all. And unfortunately, we've done a poor job of selling our views, what we are about. They talk louder, they talk faster, they are persistent in attaching ugliness, falsehoods, and the like to us.

How many will look at the Chronicle, see the title, see the imagery, have that 'knowing' lightbulb go off in their heads, and move on without reading further?

Crossing The Great Divide

As a crone who was a feminist in the late 60's, seeing this cover made me sad. Women worked so hard for so long to be represented by other women in this way?

Not only is it cheesy, everybody is white and young and trim on the cover.

The symbols and images we use to represent ourselves carry meaning and communicate our communal sense of self. (Whoever the "we" is at whatever occasion.)

There is great power in image. In my opinion, these images are just plain dreadful, and organizationally foolish.

Hi Lisa:

Altho I'm officially on hiatus, I couldn't help hearing my name being invoked in regard to the current Austin Chronicle cover controversy.
I thought if some readers happen to come my way looking for those She-Blogger pictures I've been doing for the past year or two, I should put up a post with links to all of them. So that's what I've done:

She-Blogger: A Tildified Restrospective

So come on by and take a look, and please leave a comment if you're so moved.

And thanks for the nod, Lisa!

Love from Tild ~

I think there's something missing from this conversation. It's the fact that this whole sexy brilliant cyberbabe thing is a huge part of the blogosphere. Violet Blue, anyone? Xeni Jardin? Suicide Girls? (Not works safe links, you've been warned.)

Okay, maybe Suicide Girls isn't so bloggy, but there's still that cyberbabe aesthetic at work. Xeni and Violet are women's voices in the blogosphere - Xeni is a major contributor to Boing Boing.

They may not be YOUR voice (they're not mine, really) but they are a voice and they are women. Is that style NOT the style of BlogHer? Or is BlogHer inclusive of all women's voices, regardless of their "sexploitation" aesthetic?

Maybe this is peripheral. Maybe the cover doesn't effectively represent the women interviewed. But that aesthetic is very much part of the blogosphere - and some of those using that style are women.

Nerd's Eye View

Hi Pam,

Exactly! I agree -- that's why in the initial post I invoke Tild's art and write:

I love 'em. I have no idea whether these images were an inspiration for the Austin Chronicle, but their cover is showing less skin than some of the art from the women's community online.

My two lira? I:

- Think that in the fabulous tradition of B--grade sci-fi sexsploitation, it's too bad that a couple of the women on the cover were not black, brown, and/or Andorian!
....
- Truth be told, I have never worn a red evening gown to conquer a planet. I prefer Starbuck's get-up. But BlogHer's omnipartisan -- lipstick, lace, workboots and/or coveralls, all are welcome. Ya'll wear what you want. We'll still listen to you.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Thanks for the quotes. I missed the critical bit in my undercaffeinated ADD:

But BlogHer's omnipartisan -- lipstick, lace, workboots and/or coveralls, all are welcome. Ya'll wear what you want. We'll still listen to you.

Nerd's Eye View

I can't even count how many liberal women in the blogging world use retro images not unlike the one on the cover of the chronicle to represent themselves on their blogs. I assumed the irony didn't need to be explained to everyone and that such a reprentation wouldn't require hand-holding and back-pats. Don't we get it? It's nothing like a Sambo image - to compare the two is an insult to the civil rights movement.

Furthermore, the image in the background is of women tying up and presumably torturing a man who looks a lot like Ronald Reagan: have any men written to complain about how that image objectifies them? "OMG men are being presented as women's playthings! Alert the press!"

More often than not I think the women's movement (especially in the blogosphere) could really benefit from not taking itself so seriously. That image is not a reflection of Austin's liberal values or lack thereof, it's an ironic representation of a sexually posed and seemingly vulnerable women contrasted with an article about women who have obviously demonstrated their rejection of that stereotype. To have an issue with it seems like kind of a reach to me.

Miss Domestic

Yvonne DiVita
Blogging for Books

Ok...all those who have never worn nor hunkered for a Victoria's Secret thong or lacey bra...may leave the room.

Campy pics are just that - campy pics. Women will forever be sexual figures, first and foremost, because - we are the ones with the breasts and the uterus. Let's get over it. The cover doesn't represent ALL women any more than Tom Cruise represents ALL men.