My AXE Angels Are Feminists, Not the Root of All American Evils

Oscar Goes to AXE Knocking Off Victoria’s Secret Angels Brilliantly AOC News Musings

We are busy bringing together my personal column — renamed Sensual Rebel — with our former feminist writing channel Sexual Politics.

Coming to grips with the reality that AOC friends who have hopefully read essays like Controlling Women’s Bodies Is A Fight to the Finish and The Republican War on Women Gives Me Nightmares, think I am not a feminist, it’s time to take action. 

For the record, I do not endorse America’s tendency to blame feminists for every social ill in the world from the global economic meltdown to female sexual dysfunction. Being the only woman I know gutsy enough to write that she connects the dots between fashion and flogging, I thought my philosophical stance on women’s rights was pretty clear. Obviously not.

Let there be no misunderstanding about Anne’s pedigree. I’m an ardent feminist who has enjoyed superb relations with men and women over the decades. I will post this declaration of my feminism on our submissions page — with fair warning — as my head clears from the recent confusion. Honestly, I’m sort of in a WTF zone on how I got in this recent digital jam.

When you mess with the sisterhood, you are messing with me. Do not come into my digital house, with a message that condemns feminism as emasculating men and communicate to my readers your improved vision of gender relations, especially one involving the innate submission of women — thinking that I won’t be flabberghasted and confused about what you might mean.

Do not take the growing transgender and gender fluidity movements, and the gay rights movement, and summarize feminism as solely responsible for blurring the lines between men and women, a trend you believe is wrong.

True, gender fluidity is complex on multiple fronts. But feminism is not the ‘culprit’ and I honestly believe the trend is real and natural, and we should all hunker down and deal with it.

So take all the anti-natural roles stuff to some fundamentalist, Rick Perry church, where it belongs — not AOC.

It’s true that women like me don’t fit that tightly-drawn, man-hating mold of social conservatives. I don’t expect Rush Limbaugh to cut feminism any breaks in the truth department. But someone contributing to AOC should have high standards of research scholarship.

Feminism & Objectification of Body

If there is no interest in going to Google, taking 15 seconds to put in ‘feminism+Objectification of body’ and be directed on the first entry to the esteemed Stanford University archives on the subject, we’re probably not a good match.

Some people use the Internet to educate themselves on topics before they write about them. Others buy the party line. We research.

When Lisa wrote her recent article on Tostan and female genital cutting, she spend several days getting all her facts straight — on top of in-depth writing on fgc I had already done — before committing her own words to the upload button. More than once, she said to me: “I’m not ready to write it, Anne . . too many questions.”

If you are having an intellectual discussion with me and AOC readers that condemns my feminist history and values, I suggest you spend some time researching your thoughts before letting it rip, because I do welcome debate from prepared parties.

Granted, our educational standards are very low in America and we are falling desperately behind the rest of the world in all our education scores except confidence and hubris — where we remain top dog. (Honestly, we rate ourselves the most confident students of any country in the world. It’s appalling what we don’t know about ourselves and our competition.)

Be Prepared

To say to me that you don’t know any feminists who appreciate the nude female body or that all of feminism is against any objectification of the female body suggests that you’ve never read a word of my writing and you don’t know how to work Google.

Boy scout rule #1 for going far in life: be prepared; know your audience.

I have always referenced a multitude of views within feminism itself, some more strident than others. For some reason, feminism isn’t allowed any elasticity in its philosophy and is always reduced to its most tightly-bound vision of relations between men and women, with no further research required.

Feminists suck, have ruined America and we must get back to the traditional way of doing things in this country. End of subject.

Did somebody say submission?

Until the Republican War on Women is over and Roe vs Wade is secure — or until I have moved to Scandinavia where gender equality is much greater, kids happier with fewer problems and relationships secure longer even in domestic partnerships and not marriage — please take that word ‘submission’ and don’t recommend it as the good life at Anne of Carversville.

What a woman does in her private bedroom is her business. It is not an alternative to feminism on this website. I’ve already admitted that an eyemask can be fun on occasion for both parties. If these statements still carry ambiguity on the kind of message I have chosen to send to other women and — and those wonderful men who read me, too — then I can’t help you anymore.

End of subject, except that I will post this declaration somewhere obvious, so that the Anne of Carversville philosophy on gender roles is clear.  I believe in gender equality and leave it to couples to sort out for themselves what that means.

Once more for the record, I do not believe in the natural submission of women; I believe we were conquered.

Anne Is A Bad Ass Angel

Within this intellectual context, I was thrilled last year to see ‘bad girl angels’ falling to earth and throwing their halos on the street. Watching the just now banned-in-South Africa AXE commercial because ONE Christian complained about it, I wondered if America is next. (Actually, I don’t know that it plays in America.)

Relevant to this conversation isn’t only that one of my favorite ads has been banned in an entire country because one Christian man found it offensive. The Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa ruled:

The problem is not so much that angels are used in the commercial, but rather that the angels are seen to forfeit, or perhaps forego their heavenly status for mortal desires… This is something that would likely offend Christians in the same manner as it offended the complainant.

Feminists Aren’t Single-Minded

Jezebel and AOC are on the same page about 50% of the time; yet we are both feminist websites. Remember the boyscout rule. Even with Jez and AOC, you have a 50% chance of being wrong, presenting the same material to both of us.

But don’t be confused. Talk to us about the Republican War on Women and we’re a no fissures, united front.

I don’t see the AXE angles the way Dodai does: “The angel commercial would have us believe that leggy models will actually ignore halos and all sense of reason and go for a dude just because of how he smells.”

Watching the same ad that I love because it is rebellious as a symbol of women throwing down their halos — yes to the whiff of AXE — Dodai hates it.  I don’t see a bunch of weak-knees Angels but strong women ready to teach this AXE guy how to live like a man. I see the AXE angels as redeemers of a world totally gone awry with too much testosterone — and, ok, too much AXE which is a problem in England. The young guys bathe in the stuff. 

I watched the AXE ad last year right after the Victoria’s Secret fashion show where Candice Swanepoel was crushed under the weight of the wings. When the AXE girls sent their halos crashing on the pavement, I said “yes!” louder than the woman having an shampoo orgasm in the Herbal Essence commercial.(See Will Carine Roitfeld Use Candice Swanepoel for an Angels Shootout in Vogue Paris?)

Two feminists today see the same AXE ad with an entirely different take on it. So could we please agree once and for all that feminism has layers and an inherent complexity of points of view — sort of like politics.

Feminism is not a dogma like evangelical fundamentalism, which is probably why Rush Limbaugh struggles with it.  The big guy does not like complexity of thought.

If you honestly believe that all feminists hate men, sex, and female nude bodies — you need to take a feminist quaalude and settle down with Google search and a glass or red wine. If you haven’t changed your attitude about feminism by morning, give me a call and I’ll meet you for a boxing match. (Just kidding!) Anne