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An Open Letter to Facebook | MotherWise

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EvidenceBasedParenting,WholeLifeHealth You are here: Home An Open Letter to Facebook March 11, 2013 | Jackie | 234 Comments

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An Open Letter to Facebook

First I would like to start off by thanking you for creating a wonderful social networking site that brings people together with family, friends, and their community. It helps small businesses grow, and lets us create communities that suit our personal interests. We can spend time relaxing and talking with friends, or sit back and play some games with all the apps you have for us. We have found truly supportive, loving communities of kindred spirits all over the world through your creation. However, a few things have been bothering me lately. I dont know who is running things over there at Facebook headquarters, but to me it seems like a bunch of men who enjoy women, but only on their own terms. There seems to be a bit of hypocrisy and misogyny all rolled into one, and I do not understand the inconsistent approach you are taking when implementing rules. Let me direct you to your own policy on pornography: Facebook has a strict policy against the sharing of pornographic content and any explicitly sexual content where a minor is involved. We also impose limitations on the display of nudity. We aspire to respect peoples right to share content of personal importance, whether those are photos of a sculpture like Michelangelos David or family photos of a child breastfeeding. Now, I do agree with the need to censor pornographic material from a social site that children will see, but here is where the inconsistencies come into play. Below are some screenshots of just a few Facebook pages that you can easily find with a click of a button. As we can see, it seems like the men of Facebook love to celebrate women when it is in a sexual manner that is visually appealing to them.

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These pages have hundreds of thousands of likes and have been up for months. If you scroll through the photo galleries you will find pictures of women completely exposed, pictures of unconsenting women on camera phones that bitter ex-boyfriends send into the page to Expose These Sluts, and countless other pictures that clearly violate the terms, but are never removed. I am a co-owner of a Facebook page that is directed towards moms. We are advocates, and we enjoy what we do. We have a fan base of around 14,000 people right now it is a place for women to come to get support with breastfeeding, parenting issues, birthing options, and just have a place to connect with like-minded mothers. Today I posted an anatomical drawing of a vulva; something that looks like a page out of an anatomy textbook. It was posted for educational purposes to help women get to know their bodies, learn the proper terms, as a learning tool for their children if need be. Within 3 hours, the photo was removed and my account that is linked to our page was banned for 30 days. Here is the so-called pornographic image.

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Porn.

I am wondering why pictures of women stay up if it is visually stimulating to men, but a cartoon drawing that will help women empower themselves and gain knowledge is considered pornographic, and gets removed? I am asking you to please remove the ban from my profile. I do not feel that it violated any terms, and frankly I think you are being completely unreasonable and hypocritical. You should also consider some consistency in your ban policies. Our community is very familiar with mothers getting banned for posting breastfeeding photos, which you also claim are not against your terms. Its another example of sexualized women being acceptable, but womens anatomical/biological bodies being shamed and censored. At the very least, follow your own rules. Thank you for taking the time to hear me out on this matter. Share this: Email More Like this: Print Facebook 10K+ Pinterest Twitter 1K+ Tumblr

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Tags: Facebook, Porn, vulva Categories: Jackie

AUTHOR:

Jackie
I am a radical peace preaching hippie, who questions authority, and loves to go against the grain. Compassion, empathy, understanding, and forgiveness are things I feel that are lacking a great deal in most people. Peace and equality is something I am huge on, making the world a better place. Racism, bigotry, and sexism, are a few things I am firmly against. I am a student of health, wellness, and life. I am an advocate for social justice, and peace in all forms. I am a lover of art, music, writing, and all things inspiring. I am a activist by nature (lactavist & Intactivist) In the past 3 years I have done a lot of personal growth, and I am very comfortable and loving the person I have become--I think self love is a big thing that more people should embrace, and I am not a fan of shaming of anyone for any reason. Equality, and

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compassion are things I love to see in people. View all posts by Jackie

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234 Comments on An Open Letter to Facebook

May3,2013at11:12am #

Sue Wolfsong

A picture of a vagina, be it photo or drawing will come up on a search & just automatically get taggedunlike those of buxom women in come-hither positions. But when FB is told what its for
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exceptions should be made. Men have a much more chummy relationship with their genitals they look down and there they are! Many (might I say most) straight women have never ever seen theirsdont know where things are and just refer to that area generally as down there. A drawing like this is very educational and helpfulFB should be made aware of that fact.

13pink

May3,2013at11:17am #

Hmm, made a comment but hasnt seemed to post. But yes I agree with this and shared!! Part of
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the problem might be that part of the scanning for porn and violence is farmed out to other countries which have different cultural norms. This is not an excuse at all, but maybe a reason why this is so oddly skewed!!

C. del Mare

May3,2013at11:50am #

THANK YOU!!!! You rock!!! A well written article and about time!!! I may get banned to but I am posting and sending this along!!! And please get those 14,000 fans to pay it forward too!! ! A
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breast is nurturing to a baby and we all once were children. Art is art. Freedom of speech is freedom of speech. I dont have children but so many of my friends dont understand their bodies, we see women in the ER all the time that damage has been done down there because they dont understand their own anatomy. And yes, even women with children. So please, keep on pushing forward to educate women AND men too!!! With or without Facebook and dont back down. Facebook is trying to take away equal rights to women. And this is just one more thing to help change that!!!

Svea Boyda-Vikander

May3,2013at11:59am #

The thing that bothers me about FB hypocrisy: not the sexually explicit pages (though yes, the
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ones you screenshotted tasteless!), so much as the violent and rape-mongering pages. Those are truly sick and create an atmosphere of intimidation and coercion When photos of us nursing our babies, or photos of placentae, are considered obscene. Thank you for writing this letter. I wrote a little bit about this (almost a year ago now) and I think its an important conversation that needs to happen. http://mamatomamablog.blogspot.com/2012/02/jay-z-andplacensorship-trigger-warning.html

kuanyin333

May3,2013at12:00pm #

I would actually add here that some women are also against brestfeeding in public. I really think its not accurate to make this a sexist issue and divide men and women in this experience. And
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women contribute to their own imprisonment in the porn industry and treating themselves like object. We have a choice to say no. We can take a stand for ourselves, not AGAINST men.

kuanyin333

May3,2013at1:52pm #

http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html

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Many of you ladies will enjoy this
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An Open Letter to Facebook | MotherWise

Lisa Charlene

May3,2013at5:34am #

Im talking about the condom cartoon, not the picture of the vagina. Just wanted to clear that up. I work in the local school system and our program teaches HIV, STD and teen pregnancy
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prevention education to middle school and high school kids. That includes teaching them about anatomy. I get blocked by our own firewall from a good number of the images we need to use for education. We also try to teach them respect for women (not exclusively women, but respect for everyone as well) and FB is not helping.

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