A Call to Men
Cumberland County
Jake Burton Carpenter, CEO
Burton Snowboard Company
80 Industrial Parkway
Burlington, Vermont 05401
Re: Burton “LOVE” Snowboards
Dear Mr. Carpenter,
As Co-Chair of the Cumberland County, Maine chapter of A Call to Men, I am writing to add my organization’s voice to the voices of the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and the many others who have spoken out against Burton’s promotion and sale of the LOVE™ line of snowboards. A Call to Men is a national grass-roots movement of men committed to ending men’s violence against women. Central to the movement’s efforts is the elimination of media images that objectify and dehumanize women. At a time when more and more mainstream commercial enterprises are moving toward more respectful representations of women in their advertising and products, the LOVE™ boards represent a giant step backward.
I am sure you know, better than I, the demographics of your sport. According to the 2008 SnowSports Industries of America Fact Sheet (www.snowsports.org/media_center/sia_snow_sports_
fact_sheet), more than half of all children aged 7-11 who are participating in snowsports are riding snowboards. The same source also notes that nearly 80% of all boarders are under the age of 24, and almost three-quarters of all boarders are male. Because of its prominent position in the sport, Burton is in a unique position to influence these impressionable young men.
There are some other important facts and statistics, however, with which you may be less familiar. Every two and one-half minutes, somewhere in this country, someone is sexually assaulted. The vast majority (99.8%) of those convicted of rape are men, and 68% of young women who are victims of rape know the man who raped them. One obvious conclusion to be drawn from these data is that men in our society are getting the impression from somewhere that the sexual objectification of women, even women whom they know personally, is acceptable.
There is also useful information available about where men are getting that impression. The American Psychological Association Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls has produced a significant body of work on the subject (available online at www.apa.org/pi/sexualization.htm). As a result of that work, the Task Force was able to draw conclusions about the effects of the kind of imagery Burton’s LOVE™ boards are purveying. First, the Task Force noted that, across several studies, men exposed to sexually objectifying images of women from mainstream media were found to be more accepting of rape myths, sexual harassment, sex role stereotypes, interpersonal violence, and adversarial beliefs about relationships than men in control conditions. Even more specifically and directly, the Task Force found that after men are exposed to these images, their behavior toward women becomes more sexualized, and they treat women as sexual objects.
Under the circumstances, the graphic images Burton has chosen to use on its LOVE™ boards clearly present a very real problem all by themselves, and the problem is exacerbated by Burton’s choice of the promotional and advertising copy it has rolled out to promote sales of the boards; for example:
Hi. My name is Love™ and I'm on the market for someone who's looking to score serious action, no matter where they like to stick it. I enjoy laps through the park; long, hard grinds on my meaty Park Edges followed by a good, hot waxing. Whether you're hitting it from the front or the back, my mid wide shape, supple flex, and twin tips like it kinky. Keegan and Mikkel love riding me, I hope you will too.
or:
The NEW Love™ offers stiffy-in-sweatpants feelings to riders like Mikkel and Keegan with its true twin shape, forgiving flex and slightly wider freestyle-friendly waist width. Logs, hips, boxes or booters, make the entire mountain your bitch before ripping it a new one. If your buddies aren’t throwing you high fives on this ride, keep the board and get new friends because nothing but snowboarding is sacred.
The words and images together paint a dangerously unhealthy picture.
For all of these reasons, I am charged with encouraging you, on behalf of A Call to Men, to recognize the negative impact of Burton’s marketing and sales of the LOVE™ boards on the young men and women involved in the sport and to stop making and selling them. I will look forward to hearing from you after you have had a chance to consider our recommendation.
Sincerely,
Jeff Morrill, Co-Chair
A Call to Men – Cumberland County
Program Coordinator
Boys to Men