Shame as a "family value"

Via Feministing, we find out that Bell is under no illusions about what the "family values" crowd thinks makes something obscene--the female form in and of itself. This ad is clearly meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but even so the joke doesn't make sense unless the intended audience is comfortable with the misogynist notion that the female body is something children must be "protected" from seeing and also with the notion that keeping people ignorant is an acceptable way to keep them "moral".

John Ashcroft became a national joke when he insisted on draping a statue because it had an exposed breast, but apparently Bell thinks that mainstream America is warm to the idea of spreading shame about the female body. Any day now I expect to hear about some Christian organization getting together to close down art museums that display works that have female nudity, arguing that children can be corrupted with lust by seeing a painting of Mary nursing Baby Jesus.

And since when did such flagrant anti-intellectualism become so mainstream? I guess I shouldn't be surprised that in a nation that thinks as long as you don't tell kids what a condom is, they won't figure out the mechanics of sex and instead of fooling around in high school, they'll spend their time running church bake sales would be open to good-natured ribbing about how they'd rather have their kids be stupid than ever see even a crude drawing of a breast or genitals. Well, we can't do a whole lot about people who think that if you just pretend we're smooth down there like Barbie dolls, then that makes it so. But we can let Bell know what we think of their willingness to pander to the fragment of America that thinks Shame and Ignorance are family values. Contact them at executive.office@bell.ca.