In an effort to increase the visibility of this website, I recently looked into adding a link to Digg, the popular content-sharing website. All was going along quite well (although perhaps I should have gotten a clue when I was offered 16 gender choices to choose from) until, after signing up, I was told,
“You’re now set to take advantage of all Digg has to offer. Go pimp out your profile or start Digging some stories. What you do next is up to you, but here are a few ideas to get you started.”
Excuse me? No folks, we are definitely not going to pimp the FPN profile because, and this feels like one of those times where to paraphrase Andrea Dworkin, I don’t feel like a fun kind of feminist, a pimp is someone who sells the sexual services of other human beings, human beings who are almost always women.
So we are not going to provide code so that you can regularly “Digg It”, but we will make an exception for this one post because we want to let others know how truly offensive this kind of marketing is. So here it is, your chance to Digg FPN.
6 Responses to “Pimp Your Digg Profile”
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I think it is refreshing to be offered more than two gender choices. As to the word “pimping”, I’ve felt differently about it since our West African exchange student was here and used the word to simply mean “spruce up.” I think it’s all in the cultural context.
Berit, I think a lot of people would agree with you. My son’s senior yearbook had a page called “Pimp your ride” that implied similar meaning. But the inescapable fact, to me at least, is that the origin of the word means to sell the services of a prostitute, and that I find very, very offensive.
Are you sure of the original meaning of the word? After reading the book “Cunt” I learned that cunt originally meant some kind of goddess/priestess worthy of respect and admiration.
I am using the definition in my dictionary.
I think Inga’s point was to remove the contempt that was implied with “cunt”. “Pimping” something still has the contempt of women built into it.
I’m with Lucinda. I’ve previously run into a tendency on the part of some, to rationalize really awful words or symbols by plastering them over with either newer meanings or the presumably “original” meanings. Good example: I knew people in the tatoo community who said it was fine to tatoo their bodies with swastikas–because the “ANCIENT” meaning of the swastika symbol was something quite different that what the Nazi’a meant–it was a part of early East Indian religious beliefs. This actually happens to be true. But so what? We all know the modern meaning of the swastika and there’s no ducking it or what it telegraphs when you use it.
Similarly we know the associations with the word “pimp”. Those who want to use it but tell you it’s really something else (like the folks at the Digg website), are trying to “cash in” on the raunchy and sexist meaning underlying the word so they can appeal to the sexists who think it’s a “cool” concept.–while taking the money of people like us. They are definitely legitimizing sexism by “normalizing” this word. Don’t let them fool you! And especially don’t help them do it–to the contrary: let’s expose what they’re doing!