Celebrating Crop Dusting and Sexism

The debate over whether sexism pervades PETA's tactics involving scantily clad or naked women can continue as regularly scheduled (we haven't talked about that issue yet here, have we? Don't worry--we will), but I'd like someone from the agriculture industry to please explain this too:

Cropdusters.biz Babes
"For some reason the Cropdusters.biz booth was one of the busier booths at the NAAA trade show."

I love how the writer doesn't include a photo of the founder who was interviewed for this post or an image of any of the business's products yet finds it necessary to include this image of arched backs and low-cut shirts. Regardless of how successful or unsuccessful the tactic is, at least the women who pose or engage in public stunts for PETA do so with the intention of getting an important message out. But "Duster Babes"? And tank tops and short shorts bearing the words "Duster Babe"? Really?

But oh, it gets worse. The actual Web site for the so-called business is full of images of women wearing skimpy or tight outfits, posing suggestively, or, in one case, kissing one another. There's an entire page of nothing but suggestive photos of women, some of whom look like they're probably still in their teens.

There is even a Secretary of the Month section that suggests you send in a photo if you too have "a hot secretary." I am completely freaking serious.

The Web site itself is infuriating beyond words, but equally infuriating is the fact that AgWorld--"News from the World of Agribusiness"--felt the need to feature this crap.

Maybe you're wondering why I'm posting this on the Animal Rights blog. Well, first of all, this was a story featured by an agribusiness Web site, and I consider just about anything that comes out of agribusiness to be fair game.

Second, this was a reminder, for me at least, that there is some difference between what PETA does, which it can be argued is done with good intentions and with the cooperation of women with good intentions, and what this is--obvious and indisputable objectification of women with no greater purpose. Many of us may disagree with PETA's tactics, vehemently in some cases, but I do see a distinction between these two kinds of campaigns and the intentions behind them, on the part of the organization or business behind the campaign as well as on the part of the women involved. Ask me what I find more offensive--PETA's Lettuce Ladies or the Crop Duster Babes--and I won't struggle to come up with my answer.

Third, there was just too much wrong with this post and with these images to ignore. The sexism is astonishingly blatant, but what the women's bodies are being used to promote is equally astonishing. Crop dusting? Who wants to be associated with crop dusting? In what way is crop dusting sexy? We're talking about the aerial spraying of fertilizer and pesticides here! So not only is this business exploiting women to glamorize an industry and products, but it's furthermore doing it to glamorize something destructive.

Polluted water, contaminated soil, and cancer and other illnesses in humans and nonhuman animals alike. Yeah, that's hot.

The whole thing reeks of patriarchal society. A white man runs a business predicated on ownership of nature and freedom to do with it--and to it--what he pleases, in an industry that champions conquership, control, and ownership of land and animals, and in the context of a tradition that is historically patriarchal and sexist. And to promote the whole thing, he unabashedly objectifies women. Lovely.